The Elder Powers are up to something. Life has been going too well, with too few complications. Terry and I seem to be officially dating right now. She’s better at picking the winners in football games than I am. Except Detroit. She is a die hard Detroit fan, and the Lions never change, they just suck.

It had been a long time since I had gone to a sporting event as anything other than security, but we’ve been to several Tigers games this summer. It has actually been fairly enjoyable, although they were doing better before the All Star game. Being a Tigers fan is more enjoyable than being a Lions fan. The Tigers are at least going to make the playoffs.

I haven’t had much luck figuring out what Edward is up to, but he is back out doing small group talks. He seems to be working to motivate the folks he has already gotten to, perhaps teaching them how to sway people to their influence.

Jerrod thinks there might be a chance of them bringing me back depending on who wins the elections. It seems odd that the folks who were responsible for creating the agency I was working for are now the ones who need to get out of power for me to get my job back. Of course, it is hard to say if they were having so much effect from Edward at the time. The resources would be immensely helpful in finding our where Edward has his fingers.

Reg did an amazingly good job of disappearing with his plane. If Lost weren’t actually on T.V., I would suspect that was what had happened to him. When he fell off radar, he must have covered quite a distance before he landed/crashed. We haven’t had any more messages from him, but we also haven’t managed to séance him, either.

If only I could charge the party for all the psych work I am doing with them, I would be fairly well off right now. Karen seems to be getting a bit more self-confidence, but she does have some issues that will take years if not decades to work though.

Reg disappearing hasn’t done much to help Leigh’s state of mind. She has been working though it, and seems to be doing better and getting to the point were she isn’t terrified about going out where there might be men trying to ask her out on a date. But, other than that, she seems to be adapting well to being in the States.

That was a truly disturbing dream. Children on a school bus, being driven out into the middle of a field, and then the driver lights the bus on fire and the children sing some hymn while they burn. Recording it was very difficult, especially since I am spending the night at Terry’s. She didn’t run off screaming, but she did admit that she wouldn’t want my “gift” for dreams. At least she could get back to sleep, me, I need to get out and go for a walk…

News headline “Bus Fire Kills All Children”… Shit. Here we go again…

JUSTIN’S WAR JOURNAL
Entry 60 [>>>transcribed from digital audio and ---typed]

>>>It’s December 31st and the gang just got hold of us. They were staying at a distance for a while because Karen was a bit peeved about the whole camera and radio mike they stuck in the plants that spoiled our mood at the beginning of the cruise. She got it out of her system pretty quick. She’s a loving person and these are our friends and allies. They’re on the way so we can talk. But the reason for the talk isn’t pleasant.

Leigh sent an email to Reg right after we got done with the whole Camazoot problem. To let him know we all got out in one piece. She still hadn’t got an answer this morning. She tried calling Reg. No answer. So she went to Frank and he called a contact of his in California. He got a copy of the report on the fire but nobody there had heard from Reg. So Frank dug deeper. I swear Frank must have contacts just about everywhere, including the FAA. Cause he got hold of a report from them too. It’s not good. The last contact they’ve got for Reg’s plane was somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico and then his signal dropped off the radar. The Coast Guard and any other ships in the area are already on the search. But what if it wasn’t a regular crash?

If there was trouble Reg would have followed procedure. He’s a good pilot. He would have sent out an SOS and all that. Why didn’t he radio a distress call? Did the trouble happen too fast? Did the plane crash? Could something have grabbed the plane? Even Camazoot wasn’t big enough to wrestle a turbo prop out of the sky. The only legend I’ve ever heard of about anything that big that flies is the Thunderbird. Discovery Channel even did a show about it a while back. Or maybe something got into the plane? God, I wish we knew. But we don’t. So we’re getting together to do the one thing we can think of doing. We’re going to do a séance. At least that way [choke] we can know if Reg is alive or dead. More later.

---Séance went okay. Good thing. No Reg ghost. In fact, Reg made telepathic contact with Leigh. Just for a couple seconds though and then nothing. Leigh said that all he said was “Nice coconuts” and he sounded kinda confused. So his plane went down and he’s on some desert island somewhere. But where? There are islands all over the place that will support coconut trees. Like I said before; Reg is a good pilot. They could have gone pretty far on the fuel they had left. That makes a pretty big possible search area. We’ve already decided there’s really nothing we can do about it unless and until he contacts us again. There’s just too much area to cover out in the oceans. We can’t do anything more than the Coast Guard is already doing. There’s not even anything that says this was caused by anything unnatural. It could have just been a crash, nothing more than that. We just can’t do everything, dammit. That’s all for now.

---January 3rd. Most of us are back in Detroit. Soon as we hit Florida, Leigh and Frank and Terry got on a flight headed for San Francisco. They want to check on Reg’s nieces, his dad and his sister in person. Figure it’s the least we can do for Reg is to look after his family while he’s missing. The rest of us, who had to get back to our regular jobs, flew back home. Angie and Aiden yesterday and me and Karen first thing this morning. Far as I know, Aiden got back to his residency duties soon as we hit town. Karen and me aren’t back to work til tomorrow.

We did some shopping first thing this morning and then swung by the condo. No sign of the weird little man faced rat thing in the attic. While we were there, I set up some wireless cams in out of the way places in the attic and some others in the condo itself. Not sure how long Leigh’s going to stay in San Fran and we want to keep an eye on the condo for her. The cams have night vision and motion sensors. They’re a bit better than the cams we used to keep an eye on Aiden in the meat locker. They’re hooked up so we can log in through a secure link or we’ll get an alert if the sensors pick up anything. I’ll give Leigh the link later tonight. We’re planning a conference call to hear how Reg’s family is doing. I’m assuming she’ll want the cams in the condo taken down once she gets home so I’ve already got some ideas of other places to put them up.

Karen called her mom soon as we hit the hotel last night and they made plans for a lunch date. Since Karen was looking to have some time with her mom, I called Edward this morning so we could get together for a lunch. Wanted to thank him for that nice honeymoon present and all. Yeah, and I wanted to keep his brainwashing ass away from Cathy long enough that Karen can get a good read on her.

Nothing but a “nicey nice” lunch with Edward on my end. I wasn’t even trying to read him cause I figured there was too much chance of him turning it around on me. I kept my mouth shut for the most part. Kept it to small talk. Karen says Cathy is definitely changed but she’s not sure if anybody outside of her would notice. She says her mom was always pretty much on the left side of Democrat before and now she’s sounding like a dyed in the wool, good old boy, Right Wing Democrat. She said it’s like her mom has been put through a “perfect wife” filter. Yeah, Edward is turning her into the perfect politician’s ornament from the sounds of it. She said Cathy told her that Edward is doing appearances again. But nothing as big as before. He’s talking only to small groups of ultra conservative right wing groups now. I don’t like it one bit.

But Karen said she didn’t pick up anything “Other” at all around her mom. Nothing. Like I said before; the bastard is using regular everyday brainwashing techniques now to keep her in line. But there’s no way for us to prove that without putting Cathy through some kind of “deprogramming” or whatever. From what Frank said, that could be damn traumatic for her. I’d like to beat the shit out of that bastard for what he’s doing to Cathy. But there’s nothing we can prove. Dammit. Later.

---Friday, January 6th. Got distracted getting back in the swing of things and forgot to do any update since we got back. Nothing much to report here on the home front other than the regular human on human violence that happens in Detroit every day. Not really any further developments in what happened to Reg’s family; just information.

Reg’s dad, Phil, has burns over 60% of his body and his sister, Claire, has 40% burns. They’re both in the best burn ward in California. From what Frank said, the doctors would have used drugs to put them into a coma if they weren’t already. Docs figure they’ve got a decent chance but they’ve got a long hospital stay and lots of physical therapy ahead of them. They’ve already started doing skin grafts.

Leigh and Terry check up on the girls and the foster family they were staying with in person while Frank did background checks and looked into the investigation of the fire. The foster family checks out clean and Leigh and Terry said they seemed like real nice people. Had a couple other girls in the house too and they all seemed to be getting along okay. Terry’s got all the cop instincts and training you could ever wish for and her and Leigh both thought these people were okay to watch over Reg’s nieces.

They weren’t able to get much information from the girls. Poor kids are traumatized, big time. They don’t’ remember the night of the fire very clearly. And they’re blaming themselves for they’re mom and grampa being hurt so bad. They hid when the fire started I guess. All the doctors will tell you it’s a typical reaction. Try telling that to little girls. Phil and Claire came to get the girls out of there and on the way out of the house, the stairs collapsed. The adults were trapped but the girls were thrown clear I guess and got away with minor smoke inhalation and some not too bad burns. The girls had no idea where their father was.

The oddest part of the whole thing is the fire itself and the fact that Claire’s husband is nowhere to be found. Frank said the investigators think there must have been an accelerant used because the fire seemed to burn a lot hotter, faster and bigger than a normal fire would in the amount of time it reportedly burned. But they haven’t found any traces of any accelerants. We’re thinking they won’t. Far as I know, even CSI doesn’t have a test for magic from the Unknown. Frank is going to keep talking to his contacts and Leigh is making a real effort to arrange to stay in contact with the girls through the foster family. No worries on the insurance at least. Phil and Claire are both very well covered. We’re all just wondering how Claire’s husband figures in this. But, again, we’re got no clues to point us in any direction and until we do we’re just spinning our wheels and going in circles and getting nowhere. So we wait. Later.

---February 25th. Been a while. Nothing much going on, Unknown wise. We call the Coast Guard offices regularly to keep them on the search. Still no sign of Reg. I think the fact that Reg is the head of a company with government contracts might keep them on top of things. None of us has got a telepathic message from Reg since that first one of the ship. Still nothing we can do about it. Frank’s even tried those “programmed dreams” of his but got nothing. There’s definitely something going on but there’s still nothing we can do about it. Dammit.

Except for Tony we’re all back in Detroit and pretty much back in the swing of “normal” life now. Frank heard from his people in San Francisco the other day. They say there’s no evidence of outside accelerants but they’re keeping it on the books as a possible arson. The fire got hot enough to melt metal they said. No trace of Claire’s husband either. Far as they can tell, he left without taking any personal belongings other than what he was wearing. No credit card purchases, no hits at airport security, and he hasn’t turned up in any morgues or hospitals as far as they know. Again, more nothing. Later.

---March 30th. Another quiet month; knock on wood. Tried to get hold of Dee the other day. Nothing. I hope her husband isn’t still having a hard time. Please God, let them just be off in a cabin in the mountains or on a beach or a cruise ship somewhere having a relaxing time away from everything. Still no sign of Reg. Phil and Claire are doing fairly well although they’re still in coma. No trace of Claire’s husband. We’re thinking of starting a search to see if there’s any other cases similar to that fire. Later.

---April 30th. Wow, another month with no panic situations. Not looking a gift horse in the mouth. Unfortunately, still no sign of Reg or Claire’s husband either. I’ve had to take the paintball gun modifications in a different direction. Tried some mods for some more punch and tested on a block of ballistics gel. Man, you can learn some great techniques from watching Mythbusters. Good thing I tested on gel before I ever aimed at a person with that thing. The first shot made a hole big enough to stick my thumb through. Got an idea. Almost a complete rebuild. Later.

---May 30th. Another month, no Fight. Knock on wood. Life’s okay. I’m wondering if maybe the Unknown stuff has some kind of cycle in locations. So maybe the hot spots are in somebody else’s back yard for the moment? Like I said; I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth. Later.

---June 30th. No problems with the Unknown for another month. No thoughts that the Fight is over or anything like that. None of us is that gullible. Just a lull in activity. Splat gun project is coming along pretty well. Bigger bore meant calling the company that makes the paintballs. They were happy to make what I wanted as long as I was paying. Using a gel mix about the consistency of oatmeal. Water soluble but won’t freeze. More transfer of force than the smaller balls with thinner paint. Should hit like about like the sandbag guns but with more shots. Later.

---July 30th. Another month, no Fight. Color me happy. Seems like it just can’t last much longer though. Still no Reg. Not happy. We’ve found a couple reports of fires that might have some relation to the one in Frisco. The things they have in common are the loss of children in an unusual fire and the disappearance of a single adult from the scene. Nothing solid yet though. Need more info. Later.

---August 30th. Nothing new to report. Not complaining. Keeping our heads down and enjoying the peace and quiet. Later.

Not long after Leigh finished having lunch with Frank and Terry that first afternoon on the cruise ship, she went to her cabin and tried to call Reg. He should have been in San Francisco by then and she wanted him to know that the team had rescued Terry, and that she would come to Frisco if he wanted her to. But his cell phone sent her call straight to voice mail with the message that the phone was either turned off or not in a service area. That was strange, since Reg rarely turned the phone off and the only areas where he couldn’t get service were places that were so remote there weren’t even people there. San Francisco was NOT one of those places. She went back out to find Frank again. Reg not answering worried her and she wanted to fly up to join him as soon as she could; but since Frank had paid for her to be on the cruise, she didn’t want to just leave without making sure that he didn’t mind. When she found the Frank and Terry, still sitting on deck amusing themselves with ‘people watching,’ Leigh asked if Frank would mind her leaving at the next port with an international airport. Frank didn’t mind, but wondered why; and when Leigh explained her concern, Frank offered to make a few calls in the meantime.

While Frank called old contacts in the Frisco area, Leigh went to work off some of her stress in one of the ship’s gyms. She invited Terry along, but Terry seemed content to just stick close to Frank and sip her ‘frufru’ drinks. Frank told Leigh to check back with him a little later. He was just finishing up with one of his old FBI buddies when Leigh rejoined them at the table they’d staked out on deck. He looked troubled, and Leigh ask him if he needed a drink...or if she was going to need one. He couldn’t be sure yet. He’d been able to find out that the kids were fine and in foster care, that Claire and Phil were injured rescuing the girls, that there was still no sign of the girls’ father..., oh, and that Reg hadn’t shown up in San Francisco yet. Leigh looked like she was ready to bolt for one of the lifeboats and row her way back to the States. Frank got her to sit back down and he told her that there was a record of the police calling Reg early on the 28th, and that as far as his buddy could tell, Reg’s plane disappeared from radar over the Gulf of Mexico. But her going to San Francisco right then might not accomplish anything, he cautioned her; and until he could get more information, there was no way to know what the right course of action might be. So, he would try to find out everything he could about Reg’s flight, and Leigh would just have to trust him enough to stay put on the ship for the moment. Leigh agreed, but she wasn’t happy about the situation. She felt so helpless, and she knew that if she thought too much about it, she wouldn’t be able to do what Frank asked. So she ordered a drink. And another. And another. Between her and Terry’s drinking the rest of that afternoon, it was a wonder there was enough alcohol left for everyone else on the cruise.

Frank didn’t have time for drinking, though. With Reg missing, he didn’t want Leigh to be alone. And although she wasn’t being ‘clingy,’ Terry wasn’t ready to be more than an arm’s length away from him yet. So he persuaded the women to have their drinks sent to the suite. This way, he’d know that both women were safe even after they’d passed the point of being able to look after themselves; and he’d be able to work on the phone and computer all night, tracking down anything he could find about Reg’s flight, the fire, and where the girls were being fostered. The next morning, Dec. 31st, Frank called Justin’s cell. He knew if he called the room, the call would be blocked. Karen hadn’t said much about it, but he knew she was still angry about the little practical joke he’d played on the couple. As soon as they’d all gotten back on the ship, Karen had insisted on blocking all contact with herself and Justin by any of the other Envoys. She had even shut her phone off. She was adamantly refusing any contact with the outside world that might further disturb their honeymoon. Frank had a feeling, though, that Justin wasn’t quite as upset as Karen, and that he would take the call. He was right; Justin had put his phone on ‘vibrate,’ just in case someone needed to get in touch with them. Luckily, Karen was still sleeping when Justin noticed the phone vibrating on the night stand. When he saw that the caller was Frank, he got up and grabbed the phone on his way to the bathroom. Frank didn’t waste any time. He explained to Justin that Reg’s plane had disappeared over the Gulf. Justin told him that he’d keep his phone handy, and that Frank should call if he found out anything else or needed any help from him and Karen. He wasn’t going to tell Karen anything yet; but if Frank did need them, Justin would find a way to break the news to Karen gently. She might not be happy about it, but Justin knew that, in the end, she could never refuse a friend in need.

After they had breakfast, Frank, Terry and Leigh tracked down Aiden and Angie, who were already stretched out on the top deck to spend as much time in the Caribbean sun as humanly possible. Nobody had been able to find Tony since they’d seen him putting his arm around some 30-something redhead the evening before. Frank wanted to show them all what he’d been able to find out about Reg’s flight, but they couldn’t really talk freely out in any of the ship’s public areas. So Terry suggested they go back to the suite. As they all got settled onto the couches and chairs, Frank got Reg’s flight path displayed on his computer. While they waited for it to load, Leigh booted up her own laptop and had sympathy cards and teddy bears sent to Topaz and Amethyst at the foster family’s address, and she included her contact information, telling the girls only that she was a good friend of their Uncle Reg. Then she sent get-well cards and flowers to Claire and Phil in the hospital, and made arrangements for new ones to be sent weekly until they were released. The line indicating Reg’s flight path just stopped in the middle of the Gulf, right over one of the ‘dead zones’ there that are similar to the “Bermuda Triangle” in the number of unexplained phenomena that are reported. Given the circumstances, Frank was beginning to wonder if the fire at Claire’s house was just a distraction designed by the Ancient Evils to separate Reg from the rest of the group so they could ‘pick him off.’ As far as Frank could find out, Reg hadn’t deviated at all from the optimal route from Cancun to San Francisco. Fortunately, since the plane had an FAA registry and disappeared over international waters, the US would be involved in the search; they wouldn’t have to rely on the Mexican government’s disinterested attempts at finding the lost plane.

Unfortunately, while that meant a Navy ship would be sent to look for wreckage if there happened to be one in the area, they might not be looking too hard since it was just a small private passenger plane with only two occupants. Leigh was getting frustrated, and her hangover wasn’t helping. Why was it sounding like there was nothing they could do to find Reg? Weren’t they talking about finding a guy who owned a huge high-tech US corporation? Wasn’t this the kind of thing that Americans just threw money at to solve? The fact that Reg owned a huge corporation wouldn’t do anything for helping find him if the person with his Power of Attorney, most likely either Phil or Claire, wasn’t in any condition to sign off on spending the money, Frank explained. “What about a seance?” Leigh asked. Wouldn’t that at least tell them that he was alive, if his spirit couldn’t be contacted, she wondered. Frank wasn’t sure. It sounded logical enough. The hard part was going to be getting to Karen to ask her to do it. Leigh knew that. She’d already tried to ask Karen to have coffee with her, so she could commiserate with Karen about Tony’s misguided fantasy; and she’d been intercepted and sent away by the Purser. But if this was the only way she had of finding out whether Reg was dead or alive, no Purser was going to stop her. Though she was still a little unsteady on her feet, Leigh waved off the offers of help from Angie and Aiden. She was sure that Karen knew that she didn’t have anything to do with the ‘room bugging’ joke; but she also knew that Angie was the other person in on that, and wasn’t sure if Karen knew that or not. She couldn’t take any risk of having the door slammed shut if she DID get to their room without being stopped.

And make it she did. She wasn’t be sure if it was God’s hand shielding her from the watchful eyes of the Assistant Pursers, or just the luck that protected drunkards and children. Either way, she got there, and knocked on the cabin door. Karen answered, and immediately she could tell that something was wrong. Karen had never seen Leigh drunk before, but it was obvious that she’d been drinking heavily recently and that she was suffering the after-effects now. Karen’s face darkened as she pulled Leigh into the room and asked “What’s wrong?” Reg was missing, Leigh told her. He never made it to San Francisco, and it looked like his plane had gone down in the middle of the Gulf. Leigh wanted her to do a seance, to see if Reg’s spirit would come or not. If he didn’t come, maybe that meant he was still alive and lost somewhere. Justin saw Karen’s shoulders slump slightly as she looked down at the floor thinking. He came up and hugged her from behind. He wasn’t sure if she would be able to handle another interruption of their honeymoon, even though he knew that she’d do what Leigh had asked. Karen leaned back against Justin and sighed. Even if she didn’t owe them for everything they’d done for her lately, they were still her friends, Leigh even more so than the others. She rubbed Justin’s arms, which were still wrapped around her, and she straightened up.

“Where can we do it?” Karen asked Leigh. Leigh told her that all the others were in Frank and Terry’s suite, then hesitated, hoping that Karen wouldn’t change her mind when she realized that it was the same suite they’d moved out of because of Frank and Angie’s joke. Karen just nodded and gathered the things she would need. Justin got his boxing wraps. Reg had been their friend, and, if he WAS dead, Justin couldn’t imagine his ghost trying to hurt Karen or any of the others. But there was always a risk of something going wrong with this sort of thing. He wasn’t as worried about it as he’d been the first few times Karen had done this, since he’d never actually seen anything go wrong during one of her seances. But there was no reason not to be prepared for the worst. When they got to the Presidential Suite, Karen couldn’t help but glance around anxiously, looking for hidden camera or mikes. “It’s clean,” Frank said teasingly. Karen glowered at him, then slipped into ‘teacher mode.’ She directed others to arrange the table and chairs, while she salted and chalked and lit the candle she’d set at the center of the table. Aiden and Frank would join her in the circle. Terry wasn’t ready to take part in any of these ‘weird rituals’ yet, after what she’d just been through; and Leigh felt that her own agitation over Reg’s disappearance might disturb Karen’s concentration. Angie, like usual, wanted to be keeping an eye on Aiden’s ass, since it was his turn to join the circle for a change. And even though he still didn’t like the whole idea, Justin knew that it made Karen more comfortable to have him watching her back.
As she’d been preparing the room, Karen had also been preparing herself, focusing her attention on thoughts of Reg and blocking out thoughts of all the others and of her disappointment over her and Justin’s honeymoon being interrupted again. Maybe it was the extra relaxation of being on vacation, or maybe it was just because she was becoming more adept at the rituals of a formal seance, but Karen slipped quickly into the near-trance she needed to call spirits. “Reginald Arnold Morrison, please join us in this circle.” She paused a moment and let her attention expand up and out like the heat from the candle’s flame. “Reginald Arnold Morrison, if you can hear me, please join us here.” She felt nothing. “Reg? Reg, if you’re able to come here, please, I...We need to talk to you.” The candlelight flickered, but all Karen felt was the slight air movement from the air conditioner turning on. She hesitated, trying hard to sense any spiritual presence. In the back of her mind, she knew that she’d gone into the trance more easily than other times. Now she began to doubt herself, unsure if she felt nothing because Reg wasn’t going to come or because she’d screwed up and wasn’t able to draw him in. She didn’t want to break the circle if all she needed to do was try a little harder....

Leigh had settled on the couch, and watched the seance intently, wondering if it would be better to know he was dead because his spirit came or if it would be better to be left not knowing where he was because he didn’t. Then, in the silence of Karen waiting for some response, Leigh heard Reg’s voice say “Nice coconuts....” Was it really him? Or was it just her brain wishing too hard to hear his voice? “Reg...? Is that...?” She was afraid to disturb the seance, but this wasn’t the first time she’d heard his voice in her head. He’d told her himself that he was just discovering that he was able to project his thoughts to another person. In fact, he’d almost scared the pants off Cathy by doing that. She giggled, giddy with knowing that he must still be alive. Karen felt Frank’s attention turn to Leigh as she whispered loudly that Reg had spoken to her, sort of. Karen’s focus began to waver. If he was talking to Leigh telepathically, then his spirit was still in his body. Karen nodded at the two men and gently released their hands from hers, then leaned in and blew out the candle. At least now they knew they should be looking for a living person and not just for a body.

Leigh told them all what Reg had said, and they began speculating about what it meant. Maybe he and Raimon were stuck on a deserted island somewhere? Justin asked if Frank could enlarge the map showing Reg’s flight path. Maybe if he could pick out some likely islands, they’d have a place to start looking. The two men also realized that the radar used for tracking planes didn’t cover all the way to sea-level. Reg may not have crash landed; he may have been forced to fly under the radar until he found a place he could land the plane safely. Karen wondered aloud what the natural range of coconut palms were, and how much gas Reg might have had on his plane. Both those things might help them narrow their search, too. If Reg didn’t have enough gas to make the flight non-stop, then that would limit the size of the search radius. Otherwise, the radius would be equal to the total distance he could fly on a full tank, less the distance he’d already gone; and that might be a substantially larger area to search. Also, there were only so many places where coconut palms would be growing naturally without some human intervention.

Leigh did a computer search for info on coconuts, and found that while they’re native to the South Pacific, they can float for thousands of miles before washing up on land and sprouting. “True,” Karen said. “But they still won’t grow if they wash up on a beach in Alaska. We need to know what climate range they can survive naturally in.” Leigh went back to that research while Justin and Frank pulled up other, more-detailed maps of not only the area where the plane had disappeared from radar, but also the largest possible range he might have covered if he’d continued to fly. Eventually, the stress of the search began wearing on them all, and they left the room and the computers about mid-afternoon, to eat and think. Leigh dragged Angie off to the gym to work off some of the stress. Karen and Justin went back to their room for a little time alone. Aiden went out and fell asleep in the sun. And Frank and Terry went back to ‘their table’ for a drink. When Angie finally went to join Aiden, Leigh called and invited Karen for coffee and conversation, trying to keep it light...and off the subject of finding Reg.

By the time they all met back up at Frank and Terry’s room later that afternoon, everyone was relaxed enough to think clearly. And they all realized that finding Reg was not going to be a quick or easy task. Most of them had jobs to get back to once the cruise was over on Jan. 2nd. Terry was due back at work on Jan. 8th, and Karen’s classes started back up at Wayne State on the 9th. Even though Justin was “the Boss,” he DID have to show back up at the shop eventually. Aiden was due to go back on rotation right after they got back to Detroit; and if Angie wanted to keep her job with the DPD, she had to be back at work then too. And Frank still had his psych residency to finish, though his schedule was more flexible than Aiden’s in the ER. Leigh had been planning on doing some translation work, but doing everything she could to find Reg now superceded that plan. Since they knew now that Reg was still alive, at least as of that morning, Frank suggested that they finish out the cruise; it didn’t appear that the couple extra days of searching they would gain would help much, but the chance to relax for a couple more days might. Then, when they got back to Miami, he and Terry would go directly to San Francisco with Leigh to check on Reg’s family and to find out what they could about the mysterious fire that precipitated this whole mess. Frank had a feeling that finding out more about that would give them clues to finding Reg. Besides, it was New Year’s Eve, and trying to avoid the festivities would be next to impossible. They all agreed to Frank’s plan, and scattered to enjoy the last bit of their vacation time.

Without really planning it, they all managed to end up at the same parties that evening; and Karen had, by the time the ball was dropping in Times Square, even canceled the ‘do-not-disturb’ order she’d requested. She’d known when she had requested it that she couldn’t stay mad at her friends for long. But she felt like she had to make some effort to draw a line between what she thought of as her “real life” with Justin and the impositions that The Fight, as Justin called it, made on that life. And, like it or not, she felt like she had to put her friends on the other side of that line for a while or she risked losing her sanity. Now she understood why Vanya didn’t allow people to get in touch with him at all times. But even though she’d was willing to celebrate the New Year with everyone, she knew she wasn’t ready to jump right back into her therapy sessions with Frank yet. She felt that he’d betrayed her in a way, pulling that prank for his own amusement even though she’d opened herself up to him in such an intimate way by going to him for therapy. Not that it was his fault that she’d chosen to have him as her therapist. That was her own choice, and she still wasn’t sure why she’d made it. Like with her attraction to Justin and her strange relationship with Fr. Andrew, she didn’t really understand in an intellectual way why she felt that connection to Frank, a connection strong enough that she was willing to lower her ‘walls’ with him like she had with Justin and Fr. Andrew. But she was trying to learn to trust her instincts about people. Frank’s ‘joke’ made her question the wisdom of having trusted him, and she knew that it might take a little bit of separation before she was ready to trust him again. The funny thing was, she never actually doubted that she WOULD trust him again and go back to doing therapy with him.

When the ship docked in Miami on the 2nd, most of the Envoys caught a shuttle to Miami International. Frank had converted his, Terry’s and Leigh’s tickets for the next morning’s flight back to Detroit into the soonest flight he could get to San Francisco for them. While they waited at their gate, Frank got a search started to find out what he could about the family that was fostering the girls. And Leigh found a note with a phone number in her e-mailbox from the two kids. Angie had converted her and Aiden’s tickets from Cancun to Detroit into a pair from Miami to Detroit, to get them back in time to keep their jobs. Justin and Karen weren’t flying back to Detroit until the next morning, so they caught a shuttle to the Marriot. And all any of them had seen of Tony the entire cruise had been glimpses of him with that same redhead. They didn’t actually see him leave the ship, but when he didn’t turn up to catch one of the shuttles, they figured he’d gone off with her to wherever she was going next. Which he had.

When Frank, Terry and Leigh landed in San Francisco, their first destination was the hospital. Claire and Phil were in the Burn Ward. When Frank explained who they were and why they were there, they were told that the two patients were lucky they were unconscious. If they hadn’t been, the staff would have had to put them under anyway. Claire had 3rd degree burns over about 40% of her body, and Phil over about 60% of his. Both were undergoing intensive skin grafting, and would likely be in the hospital for several months. Because of the risk of infection, they were in isolation, but the three were welcome to check on them through the windows of the isolation units. As they left the hospital, Leigh’s phone rang. It was Topaz, who was 7 years old, calling to thank her for the teddy bears. Leigh didn’t need to worry about them, Topaz told her, because things were OK. Well, except for Mommy was in the hospital and Grandpa was in the hospital and they didn’t know where Daddy was. But their foster parents were nice, Topaz told her, and Leigh asked if she could speak to them. When the girls’ foster mom came on the phone, Leigh was relieved to find that she sounded like a very nice woman. Besides the two girls, the couple were also fostering two boys as well. Leigh offered to take them all out for lunch. She had a few photos for the girls, and it would be a good opportunity to meet them all. She asked __ to pick the place, and she’d meet them all there.

When she got off the phone, Frank suggested that Terry go along with her. He wanted her to get a ‘cop’s read’ on the kids and what they saw or remember about the fire, and on the foster family. He was going to try to ‘work the case’ as much as he could, talking to the cops, the doctors, even going to the remains of the house itself if he could swing it. __ picked a nice family place for lunch. On the way, Leigh stopped at a toy store and got stuffed horses for all 4 of the kids. She also had the pictures of Reg for them. Leigh had no problem picking the family out of the crowd when she and Terry got there. __ was about 40-ish and looked a little harried from riding herd on 4 kids. Her husband, Dan, was at work and couldn't make it, she told the other two women. The girls looked just like they did in the photos Reg had. __ introduced the boys as Jerry, a little boy of Asian descent, and Pete, a little African-American boy. She and Dan found they couldn't have kids of their own, and they'd decided to try fostering. It was obvious to Terry that, although it looked and sounded like they were lower middle class, Dan made enough to keep the family clean, happy and well fed. They definitely weren't in it for the money like some of the foster parents Terry had run into in Detroit.

Terry somehow got volunteered to stay with the kids while Leigh and __ went to the restroom. It was Leigh's only chance to tell __ about Reg disappearing without the girls overhearing. Both women agreed that it would be best if they didn't know that for now, and __ told Leigh that she also was putting off letting them see their mom and grandfather until both were in better condition. Leigh told her a little about herself, including that she'd recently lost her husband, and __ got the impression that Leigh and Reg were a little more than casual friends. When Leigh got back to the table, she and Terry asked the girls to tell everything they could remember about the night of the fire. 'Paz (as Amy referred to her), the older at 7 years to Amy's 4, told most of the story. They had gone to bed at 8pm, their usual time, and Daddy had kissed them goodnight like always. The next thing they knew, it was all smoky and Grandpa and Mommy were waking them up. Mommy had to pull Amy ('Paz called her Thistle sometimes, Amy told them, when she wanted to pick a fight) out from under the bed because she'd been scared and crawled under there. That was how Mommy got burned. Grandpa had grabbed her ('Paz) and had run out of the room carrying her. But when they were going down the stairs, they broke and Grandpa protected her when they fell. That was how he got burned. They didn't know where Daddy was, and they hadn't heard or seen anything different than normal that day or evening before bed. Before leaving the restaurant, Leigh made sure to get special dates for everyone in the family, so she could send cards and keep contact with them all.

Frank met with a little resistance when he first tried to get information about the case. The locals didn't want a Fed taking over their case, or taking all the glory for solving it. Not that they could figure how he could do any better than they were. When he finally explained that he was there as a friend of the family and not in any official capacity, they opened up to him. The source of the fire appeared to be electrical, it looked like it started at the tree, and it had started about midnight. The arson investigator found no sign of accelerants. The weird thing was that the fire seemed to have burned hotter, faster and bigger than it should have been without accelerants. But not hot enough to have completely consumed a body, so the father was considered missing and a suspect. On the other hand, all his acquaintances say he wasn't acting in any strange or unusual way at all in the time leading up to the fire. When he disappeared, he took only the clothes on his back, and there has been no activity on his credit cards or bank accounts since before the fire. All in all, they were beginning to hate this case. It smelled bad somehow, but they could find absolutely no evidence of it being anything other than what it appeared, an accidental electrical fire during the holiday season, just like tons of others that happen at this time of year.

Frank got permission to go to the 'crime' scene partly because they trusted he knew what he was doing and partly because it wasn't really a crime scene anyway. There was almost nothing left of the structure. Frank had to pick his way through the debris, and he couldn't find anything that hadn't been touched by the flames. He could feel a residual sense of the Unknown, but nothing specific enough to make him stop and study any particular spot. He did notice a couple places that seemed colder than they should have been, but, again, he could find nothing unusual about those spots. He looked for anything that might have led him to believe that occult rituals of any time had occurred there, and found nothing. No symbols hidden under ashes, no ritualistic items left burned in the debris. Only the tracks left by the firefighters and the investigators who followed them. It was a little too mysterious, but he'd learned all he could from the scene and went to speak with Claire and Phil's doctors, to see if what they had to say jibed with what he'd seen there. The Unknown HAD been involved somehow, as he'd suspected. It would be interesting to hear what Terry and Leigh found out from the children, too. Which was pretty much things they already knew. Terry's assessment of the family: If she were orphaned, she'd want to live with this family. The parents were just strict enough, and doted on all the kids. They were responsible, respectable, and there was no sign that they in any way mistreated the kids or the foster system. When Frank finally got the chance, he loaded some pertinent facts about the fire to a few of his 'favorite' conspiracy websites to see what might trickle back.

When Karen and Justin got home, Karen called her mom to make a lunch date. She wanted to see if anything had changed since she'd seen her at Christmas. Her mom sounded well enough on the phone, and they decided that Cathy would pick Karen up at 11:30 on Wed., Jan 4. Since Karen was going to be out for lunch with Cathy anyway, Justin figured he might check out what Edward was up to at the same time. Karen thought that was a great idea. In fact, he could give Edward the belated Christmas gift they'd gotten for him in the Caribbean, since Karen was taking the one for her mom. Her mom had insisted that the couple didn't need to get them anything for Christmas, but Karen wanted to get her mom something. And it would have been rude to get Mom something without getting something for Edward. As long as her mom was still with him, they were going to have to do their best to keep up the farce and pretend that they liked Edward too. It wasn't like there was anything the two needed, so Karen and Justin managed to find something small and Caribbean-themed for each of them, things that wouldn't clash horribly with everything else in the house. The two also checked on the condo, and found that Brown Jenkin was gone. There was no sign that it had returned at all while they'd been gone. But just in case, Justin set up some surveillance cameras in the attic and a couple other places to keep an eye on the place until Leigh got back. They wanted to make sure that she'd be safe there, and that the other owners were too.

Justin met Edward at the brew-pub, which happened to be on the opposite side of town from where Karen and Cathy were having lunch. Both pairs spent most of lunch talking about Justin and Karen's trip. Edward was as smooth as ever at deflecting questions and turning the conversation back to Justin, and the two had a perfectly pleasant lunch. Cathy was still managing to avoid setting a wedding date, which Karen was pleased about, but she sounded much less uncertain about the idea of marrying Edward than she had been before. In fact, even though Edward didn't have the same 'help' he'd had before from the electrical creature, he was still somehow continuing to 'mold' Cathy into the 'perfect wife.' She wasn't quite “Stepford” yet, but she was no longer the mom Karen had grown up with. She no longer talked about her other interests; in fact, she seemed to be trying to deflect attention away from herself the same way Edward did, though not to the same degree. Karen brought up the idea of a “girls' weekend” away, maybe up at the casino. Her mom used to loved going to the casinos with her friends, though Karen was never the type to find spending money entertaining. But Cathy countered the suggestion with the idea of a spa weekend instead. Yet another thing that had changed since she'd met Edward. Cathy told her that Edward was going to start lecturing again, and Karen suggested that they schedule the weekend sometime when Edward would be busy anyway. Her mom seemed to like that, and told Karen she'd get back to her with Edward's schedule. Maybe they could do it sometime in the spring.

The next 9 months passed relatively quietly for the whole team. Karen had her usual school schedule planned out, and she reopened the dig that summer without incident. She did manage to get her mom separated from Edward for a weekend and tried everything she knew to break the spell Edward had over her, to no avail. Whatever he was doing now was good old-fashioned brain-washing. Nothing Unknown about it, so there was nothing Karen could do to fix it. She managed to talk her mom into going to the spa at Soaring Eagle so that she could have her friends there 'run interference' if Edward showed up. He didn't; but he did call Cathy on her cell every evening, and Karen couldn't bring herself to prevent her mom from talking to him though she'd done everything she could think of to prevent him having any physical contact with her. Later, she tried taking a look at Edward in the 'ethereal plane,' but he looked completely normal. It took her a couple months before she was ready to 'forgive' Frank for his little prank, but by March she was back to seeing him for bi-weekly sessions. She still wasn't sure if it was doing much, since she could have used the clinical terms to describe her 'issues' as well as he could. But she guessed it made her feel a little better somehow to unload some of the stuff in her head to a 'disinterested third party.' As much as she loved Justin, it was different when she told him this stuff. He wanted so much to 'fix' it all for her, but there wasn't much he could do. It was mostly stuff she'd have to figure out how to fix for herself, and she always felt bad putting Justin in a position where he couldn't do anything more than give her a hug and let her know he was there for her. Karen also remembered to call CJ occasionally to keep her 'connected.' The show Harvey had come up with and she'd tweaked into “Supernatural” had been picked up by one of the smaller networks and renewed for a second season. Her next idea, “Jericho”, about a small town in the Midwest that's isolated when the US comes under a nuclear attack, was keeping her busy on the West Coast since it got its shot as a new fall show on one of the major networks.

Justin started back to work at the same time Karen did, and he'd also started working out more in some of his free time. He tried to get Karen involved, but other than some sparring to keep her boxing skills fresh, she wasn't as interested in a workout regimen as Justin was. Justin continued to work on the 'splat gun' project, going from modifying off-the-shelf paintball guns to building something from scratch to match the picture in his head. He also decided to pick up a couple extension classes in carpentry so that he could take care of things around the house himself if they wanted anything fixed or remodeled. Leigh was keeping busy with her translating, and she arranged to teach a comparative mythology class at Wayne State as a guest lecturer. The condo continued to be free from unusual visitors, except for Diva, who still came to curl up in her favorite spot on the bed. Leigh got no more telepathic messages from Reg, but kept herself open for them just in case. And though she didn't make a big deal of it, she'd decided to stay away from dating in the meantime. She'd kept in touch with Reg's family, even going out for an occasional visit. The girls stayed with their foster family until Claire was able to take care of them again, which happened when she was released from rehab just before school began that September. Phil was still in rehab, but Audra had been spending as much time out there with him as she could, and was rearranging her 'life' so that she could move in and take care of him when he did get out. Neither Phil nor Claire remembered much about the fire. They would get random flashes of memory, maybe the smell of smoke or the feel of heat on the door, or the feeling of the stairs giving way beneath Phil's feet. But that was all; nothing substantive.

Angie was keeping busy with the DPD, both with teaching and running training exercises. The latter assignments were the part she really enjoyed, coming up with twisted plans for the training scenarios, setting them up and tormenting her 'students' with them. Aiden had been picking up so many extra shifts, he managed to put in his Residency hours faster than usual. There was a small 'bidding war' among the local ERs for his services as Senior Resident when he became eligible, which Receiving won (though, he would have chosen to go there anyway.) And he and Angie were still together come October, to almost everyone's amazement. At least once a month, as many of the team members as could make it, including Gary on occasion, got together for a group dinner to share anything new that might have been happening. This was in addition to the 'training' sessions that Frank, Terry and Angie put together. These were unscheduled, and the others would only get a text message from one of the three, never knowing for sure if it was real or a test. They'd all agreed that it was the best way to keep themselves sharp and ready for action. Sometimes the sessions were just a chance to go to one of the local shooting ranges for some target practice or to a local gym for hand-to-hand sparring; other times they were practice assaults on one sort of 'evil creature' or another to work on team-work drills. And sometimes the three rigged a 'secret location' with special effects to mimic an ambush, for the team to practice working in unexpected pressure situations. They also got together in smaller groups for purely social reasons during this time, for a quick lunch with friends or for a chat over coffee. And there were a few minor 'weirdnesses,' like the occasional ghost, that kept everyone from forgetting why they'd all met in the first place.

Nothing had been heard from or about Reg or Raimon in all this time, and no wreckage had been found either. Frank continued to try to 'dream' for any information he could get about Reg's condition and whereabouts, but each dream, though different from the last, amounted to “ask again later.” He had been tracking Edward's movements using the schedule that Karen got from her mom, and he'd also been trying to trace Edward's connections within the government. Most of Edward's engagements had been on the East Coast. They were no longer the large seminars like he used to do. These were mostly small groups, of conservatives or the Christian Coalition. It was more like consulting or 'think tank' work. Once every month or two, Frank would also get a note from one or another of the conspiracy nuts, saying that he heard that Frank wanted “fire stuff”--stories about how up out of nowhere someone burned up or burned up a family member. There was a lot of dross, but Frank did get some useful stories, like the one about the 22-year-old co-ed who sat down in the quad, poured gas over herself then lit a match last spring in Washington. People tried to put the fire out but it was burning too hot and too fast. Frank would pass the stories along to Karen and Leigh, who helped do some of the research to check out the more promising stories. He also met with Jared a few times, just to chat. Jared talked about Kat more than anything else. Frank let him know that he was still trying to track down the mysterious female 'photographer' from Kat's funeral, but he hadn't been able to find out anything at all.

Frank and Terry's relationship had grown to the point that Frank was occasionally spending nights at Terry's place, and summer had long since wound down into fall when Frank laid down next to Terry to sleep on the night of Oct. 10. Things had been so quiet for the past 9 months that he was expecting 'the other shoe to drop' at any time. As he'd gotten ready for bed, he wondered if this time he might 'dream' himself some information about how to find Reg, since it seemed like they might have time to work on that particular 'project.' He drifted off to sleep with Terry warm against his side. He opened his eyes and found himself standing by the side of a lower Michigan road. The air was crisp, and the sun was low enough to be late afternoon or early evening. The leaves were just turning color. As he stood there, a small school bus drove by. It seemed odd that late in the day. Maybe it was a field trip. There was a woman standing at the front of the bus, and the kids were sitting in nice orderly rows. There were a number of them, he couldn't tell exactly how many, but the bus wasn't full. For some reason he couldn't quite make out the name of the school on the side of the bus, though it looked like there was something written there.

Across the road was a field of corn. It was turning brown and bent over from the weight of the ears waiting to be harvested. Suddenly, the bus made a sharp right turn into the cornfield at full speed. It finally rolled to a stop in the middle of the field, and Frank walked toward it wondering if maybe the driver was having some sort of problem. As he got closer, he saw the inside of the bus light up, like large candles were being lit inside. It was the children! One by one, they burst into flames. Frank could hear music, like the children were singing, maybe a hymn but he couldn't quite recognize which one. The whole bus was on fire, but there was no screaming and no one was trying to get out. There was only the haunting sound of the music....

Frank woke with a start and found himself back in Terry's bed. He sat up on the edge of the bed and felt around for the small voice recorder he always kept by his bedside, then started describing the dream. It was about 3:30am on the 11th, and after a few minutes of recording his dream, Terry woke too. She laid there quietly beside him until he was done, then sat up and began rubbing his back. “I wouldn't pay to have nightmares like yours,” she told him. When she finished the backrub, she got up. She tossed him his sweatpants and began pulling on her own. “We're awake, we may as well go for a run,” she said. “Then maybe we'll be tired enough to get back to sleep.” The two jogged for a few miles, and when they got back they flopped back into the bed. Terry fell back to sleep immediately, snoring after a few minutes. Frank couldn't relax enough, so he got back up and went to check his email. In the mailbox was a note from one of his conspiracy buddies telling him to check out the early edition of the paper. He'd know the story he was looking for, but it wasn't in the online edition yet. Frank got dressed and went out to the nearest coffee shop to pick up the paper. The main story: a bus driver drove his bus into a cornfield last night and set the bus on fire with all the children inside.

Karen and Leigh studied the carvings on the walls. The place was obviously leading into a temple, but the marking were merely decorative as far as the women could tell. But the fact that the bat carvings had fangs did nothing to allay their fears. Tony racked a round into the chamber of the shotgun he was carrying and looked at the others. He’d changed clothes and blackened his face, and Justin thought he looked ready for a recon mission, kind of like the character Sgt. Elias from the movie Platoon. The team peered down the stairs into the darkness, and Tony reconsidered his choice of weapon. The stairway was narrow, and he had no idea how far the stairs went or what was at the bottom. He slung the shotgun over his shoulder and pulled out his pistol. Then he took ‘point.’ Just before he started down the stairs, he joked that maybe if Justin took point, the creature would think they were “bringing a virgin sacrifice.” Everyone chuckled, but the laughter was as lame as the attempt at a joke.

Justin followed about an arm’s length behind Tony, pistol drawn. Karen was put in the center because she didn’t have a weapon, with Leigh behind her carrying the ‘net gun.’ Frank brought up the rear, carrying not only his gun but the med kit as well. The air was thick and humid as the five crept down the narrow stairway; and the light beam from the hand suns Justin and Frank carried cut through the gloom as if the darkness were a living thing that refused to give up even an inch of ground to the Envoys. The still air smelled faintly of ammonia and old blood, and of the sweat of the five rescuers, which wouldn’t evaporate and pasted their clothes to their skin. The ceiling was only 6-foot high, causing most of the team to stoop to avoid scraping their heads on the stone; and it was only about 3 and a half feet wide. It was close and hot, and the smells stuck in the back of their throats. “The Mayans were a small people,” Karen whispered, partly to explain the size of the hallway to them and partly to break the oppressive silence.

Tony signaled that he was just reaching the bottom of the stairs, and Frank had only just gotten inside the opening at ground-level. So, the stairs didn’t go as deep as they’d looked from above. There was an intersection ahead, Tony whispered back. No one was sure why they were all whispering. If the creature had other bat-like abilities, as they suspected, it probably already knew they were there. Justin hissed at everyone to be quiet for a second. He thought he’d heard a skittering noise down near his feet.... He pointed the light beam down, and saw spiders. He pointed it around at the walls and saw spiders. He pointed it at Tony’s back, and at his own legs, and at Karen and saw spiders. They were getting inside pants and down shirts and up sleeves, and they were getting stuck in their hair. There were thousands of them, boiling out of the walls and crawling all over the three at the front of the line! Karen started screaming. Spiders didn’t normally bother her. They were an occupational hazard, and she’d learned to ignore them for the most part, even when they bit her. But now, my God, they were all over her! She beat at them with her hands, and stomped and spun, barely avoiding crashing into Justin or Leigh. When she felt them crawling onto her face, she went from screaming to an hysterical, sobbing, close-lipped whimper.

Tony shook hard and started backing up just before Justin reached out to grab him; but he kept his eyes focused on the darkness below him, ready for something worse to attack them from out of it. Justin turned his attention to Karen, ignoring for the moment the spiders on himself, and nudged her backwards toward Leigh. Leigh could see the spiders covering Karen, and checked for any on herself before brushing enough off Karen’s back so that she could grab her shirt. Frank backed outside and kept the light trained down the stairway for the others. Justin used his own body to crush spiders by bouncing off the stone walls, careful to keep his balance and to keep from banging the hand sun. With Karen being led by Leigh, the other four got outside quickly. As soon as they were away from the opening to flat ground, Tony and Justin ‘stopped, dropped and rolled,’ to crush the spiders that were on them. Karen kept sobbing and whimpering and careening around the ‘courtyard’ until Leigh and Justin forced her to the ground to roll, too. While Leigh helped those three, Frank opened one of the cans of kerosene they’d brought to fill lanterns. He poured it down the stairs, then pulled out a lighter and lit the stream of kerosene. If the others had had the time to pay attention, they would’ve seen the stairway light up with flames and heard the crackle of spider bodies popping in the fire.

As the fire burned itself out, Frank and Leigh helped the others strip, and checked to make sure there were no stow-aways under their clothes and or bites that could be poisonous. Luckily, no one had been bitten; and as they re-dressed, they took care to button every button, tuck their pant-legs into their boots, and duct-tape shut every ‘seam’ where one piece of clothing met another. Leigh wrapped Karen’s braid tight to the top of her head and pulled the stocking cap Justin handed her down over it before taking care of her own hair. Only Karen seemed to be having a lingering problem with the spiders. Leigh and Justin had to help her undress and dress, because she would spasm every time she thought she felt something crawling on her. She would jerk and slap at the spot, though she’d been told several times that all the spiders had been removed. And she continued to whimper, her lips still pressed tightly together to keep the non-existent spiders from getting in her mouth. When they were both dressed, Justin held her tight and rubbed her arms and back roughly, reassuring her that there were no spiders on her, until the spasms faded. He felt her shudder one last time, then she relaxed with a heavy sigh. She wasn’t over it completely yet, but she was as ready as she ever would be to go back down again. She had no choice. She couldn’t leave Terry down there.

Frank handed them all air filters to pull over their mouths and noses. Not only would they cut the smell of the burnt kerosene and spiders, but they might help protect them from any ‘poisonous vapor’ traps the creature might have in store for them. When everyone was ready, Frank took ‘point’ and started down the stairs. He wanted someone in front who didn’t have impaired hearing this time. Nothing against Tony, but his recon skills left something to be desired after years of working with explosives. Tony followed Frank, then Karen and Leigh again, with Justin bringing up the rear. Every time he saw Karen shudder or jerk, he felt his chest tighten and he had to look away. He needed to concentrate on what they were doing, and he couldn’t afford to split his attention between that and his wife. No matter how much Karen needed him right now, they both knew that Terry needed all of them more. What a horrible way to spend their honeymoon.

Once again, the darkness swallowed the light from the hand suns as the five crept down the stairs. Karen concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, all of her senses stretched to their limits as she tried to anticipate the next attack. She didn’t even try to suppress the shudders that coursed through her body. All she could do right now was ignore them and get through this. But this time nothing attacked them. The smells of kerosene and burnt spiders now almost drowned out the fainter scent of ammonia and old blood, and the masks couldn’t filter them out completely. Tony aimed the light beam at the floor in front of Frank. Every 4th flagstone was carved with the image of a bat, with other figures carved of the rest of the stones. Frank got to the intersection and had Tony shine the light down all three hallways--to the left and right, and straight ahead. Nothing. The stones all had the same sorts of carvings, and there was no dirt or dust or debris covering any of them to give Frank some idea of which way Terry had been taken. Frank lowered the mask from his nose. Terry usually wore perfume. He’d never given it much thought before, but maybe if he could catch a whiff of it now it would tell him which way to go. He motioned to Tony to stay put, and he edged a few steps down each of the hallways. It was very faint, but he was sure he could smell it down the hallway straight ahead. He motioned to the others, and started moving again.

Frank had gone about 12 feet, and Justin had just gotten to the bottom of the stairs, when the group was plunged into darkness. Every light the team had on was instantly extinguished, and they were left standing in a pitch blackness that can only be experienced underground. Justin could barely make out the faint outline of the opening above him, and it seemed a thousand miles away. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, the stairway seemed to brighten ever so slightly with a faint ghostly glow, and he was amazed again at just how much light the stars could make in an otherwise dark sky. Karen gasped before clamping her lips together, expecting another swarm to attack her. She shuddered and began fidgeting, her body still recalling the feel of thousands of spiders crawling on her. Justin felt his gut lurch when he heard her. He wanted so badly to go to her; but he knew he needed to hold his position there, and he knew she’d understand.

Tony closed his eyes for a second and tried to extend his other senses in every direction. He knew that the slightest sound, or the slightest change in a smell or in the feel of the air on his face might warn him of trouble. He heard a small crack and the sound of sloshing liquid from Frank’s direction that he recognized immediately as a Chem-lite being lit, but he saw nothing when he opened his eyes. And he could hardly miss the racket that Karen was making behind him. Beyond that, he heard someone flicking a lighter. Leigh was trying hard to light her Zippo, but it was as if the thing was out of fluid. She knew it was full when she put it in her pocket, and she shook it again to make sure it hadn’t leaked. No, it was still full, so something was preventing it from lighting. Justin, talking just loud enough that he figured they could all hear him, suggested that they gather into a circle facing out, so they’d be ready for an attack. Frank wasn’t about to run again unless he had to. He chucked the Chem-lite down the hallway and listened as it hit the floor and bounced a couple times before stopping. Still no light. But there didn’t seem to be anything attacking them either. If the darkness was being caused by a spell or some sort of trap, maybe they’d be able to see again further on. He suggested they leap-frog along the hallway until they could see again. Justin pulled out the rope he was carrying and got everyone tied together.

Then they began working their way slowly down the hallway. Frank moved out to the end of the rope, then stood against the left wall while Tony moved past him, left hand out to the front and right hand feeling the wall, so that he’d all know if he got to another wall or cross-passageway. Then, as much as she was afraid of being the one alone at the front, Karen followed Tony and did the same, followed by Leigh, then Justin. Then Justin became the ‘anchor’ point as the line continued past him. The group had gone about 20 feet in this way, when Frank felt a wall ahead of him. He paused and listened a moment, and when he heard nothing, he cracked 2 more Chem-lites. This time, the hallway lit up with a bluish-green glow, and Frank could see Tony behind him and walls on the other three sides. Beyond Tony, the hallway was still pitch black and the rope holding the team together, and the piece of twine that Frank had been trailing behind them, disappeared into the darkness. Damn! They’d gotten to a dead-end. But, he was sure they hadn’t passed any other openings along this hall. Either it was a trap, or there was some way out that he was just missing. He was just turning back to inspect the walls around him when he heard a gasp behind him. He turned back and could see Karen beyond Tony, and Leigh’s and Justin’s figures dimly beyond that. Everyone else flicked their lights off then back on and the hallways lit up again.

The five began studying the walls, ceiling and floor, looking for a hidden door. Finally, Frank and Leigh found a seam that formed a continuous line in the shape of a floor-to-ceiling rectangle on the wall at the end of the hallway. It had an elaborate carving on it with a bat motif similar to the entryway, and there was a small opening where the mouth of the bat would be, big enough to put a hand in--or a gun barrel. Frank put the barrel of his pistol into the hole. As he slid it deeper in, there was a metallic CHINK, the slightest feeling of resistance, then...nothing. Frank pulled the barrel out. There was a thin line cut into the metal that would have been at the top of the hole. It looked like it was deep enough that whatever made it would have cut a hand put in there. How deeply they couldn’t be sure. Karen suggested in a tiny voice that maybe someone HAD to put their hand in it. Maybe it needed blood.... The five looked at one another. When no one else seemed to come up with a better idea after a significant pause, Karen held out her left hand. She might not be useful enough to do a better job at finding Terry, but she could do that much. She stepped toward the wall and started to move her hand toward the bat’s ‘mouth,’ when Frank stopped her. He had a better idea. He pulled a syringe from the med kit and drew a little blood from his own arm. He made Karen step back and glanced at the others, warning them to get ready for, well, for anything. Then he squirted the blood into the opening.

There was another metallic SHINK, louder than the last, and a grinding noise, then quiet. But the door had moved, silently, pivoting around a center point and not even touching the floor, so carefully had it been built. Frank stepped part-way through the opening. The hallway continued on, sloping gently downwards. There was the same musty smell of ammonia and blood, but there was more. It was Terry’s perfume and something else, something a little too sweet, like spoiled fruit. The team slipped through the secret doorway one at a time, with Justin at the end. As Justin stepped clear of the door, it pivoted shut behind him. He checked the floor and the walls, but could find nothing that might have triggered its closure. The Envoys moved on, and Frank stopped when he came to another intersection a short way ahead. This time, corridors extended out to the left and right, but they were only about 2 feet wide. Frank studied them, looking for anything that might tell him which way Terry had been taken. Finally he spotted it. There was a tiny smear of blood and a little clump of a few hairs to the left, as if the creature wasn’t being especially careful as he carried Terry down and her head hit the wall.

Frank turned left and the team followed him, each person an arm’s length from the person ahead. Justin studied the corridors as they went. It was as if they’d been swept clean by whatever had moved through them. He thought that maybe the creature, if it was the same bat-thing that had taken Terry, might have worn a trail in either the floor or the ceiling. But there was no evidence of damage to any surface, so it either didn’t rub against them or it just didn’t travel this way often enough to have worn a trail. It didn’t take the team long to realize that they were in a maze. Frank was still leaving a trail of twine as they went, and they began to mark each corridor as they systematically moved through. After about 45 minutes, Frank came to yet another dead-end. But this one was different. For one thing, he knew that it was at the end of the last unchecked hallway. And the area in front of the wall had widened like a foyer. But most importantly, there was an incredible carving covering the wall. It was done in the same Mayan style, and, larger than everything else, at the center of the wall was a woman standing with her arms outstretched, with a huge bat behind her. Karen and Leigh looked at it for only a moment, both appreciating the skill of the carver and the ‘beauty,’ if they could call it that, of the image, before agreeing that it appeared to ‘describe’ a marriage ritual. And, sure enough, there was also another hole with well-worn edges in the wall, at just the right height for someone Karen’s size to place his or her hand inside.

Frank squirted more blood from the syringe into the opening. A moment later the wall began to rise, grinding loudly, as if the mechanism had rusted from millennia of disuse. As the team stepped through the opening, they found themselves at the top of a flight of stone stairs. A large room spread out around and below them. It was like a small stone stadium, with bleachers, punctuated by flights of stairs, surrounding a flat central ‘field,’ at the center of which was the stone altar Frank had seen in his dream. Lying on it was Terry, her upper body and head bloody, wearing only the tank top and underwear she’d been kidnapped in. “Here, Vlad,” Frank said, his voice barely above a whisper. He carried the mahogany spear in the rifle holster that was slung across his back. Justin asked if he’d brought any flashbangs, and Frank told him they were a little harder to come by on the Mexican black market than they were when he was DHS. Tony pulled out the cross he wore on a chain around his neck and kissed it, asking God’s help and protection. Karen closed her eyes and touched the crucifix she wore and prayed silently that they would all get out of this alive.

The five started cautiously down the stairs until they were all standing spread out slightly along the edge of the ‘field.’ They continued to scan their surroundings, certain that the creature knew they were there and certain that it was using Terry as bait in a trap, at least for the moment. Karen had continued to press her hand against the crucifix, and was a little startled to find that the crucifix felt warm to her touch. She let the others know. She still wasn’t sure what that meant, but it had to mean something. Three of the others acknowledged her comment, but Frank stood stock-still, looking up at the ceiling. It took them all a second to realize that he wasn’t just studying something--he was being held there. Without a second’s hesitation, Leigh sent out a Mental Shield as they all turned to look at whatever Frank had last been looking at. Before they could even make out its form, the creature made an ear-piercing shriek and flew straight at Frank.

The thing was huge, with a wingspan of about 20 feet, and it crossed the space between its roost and Frank like...well, like a bat out of Hell. As Frank began to move again, Justin and Tony raised their guns. Tony was carrying an automatic rifle, and the flash of ten bullets spitting out the barrel left a trail of bright spots in the dim light as he followed the thing across the room. The creatures eyes were milky white with no pupils or irises, like it had cataracts. Frank dropped his gun and pulled the spear from the holster. He wrapped both his hands tightly around it and waited for the creature’s attack, thrusting the spear upwards at the last moment before its gaping jaws could clamp down on his head. As the spear sank deep into the creature’s chest, Leigh fired the net-gun, hoping that if the spear didn’t kill it, the net would at least restrain it while they continued to attack. Justin was standing a few yards behind Frank, and he fired his gun at the same moment, exploding one of the creature’s eyeballs. They all watched as the net expanded above and behind the thing and dropped down onto it as it crashed into Frank. The creature spasmed with the combined injuries from bullets and spear, tangling itself and Frank in the net. Its momentum carried the two across the floor and into Justin, and then into the risers at the far side of the room.

Karen had paused only a second, long enough to see that all of the creature’s attention was focused on Frank, before she darted across the room behind the thing toward the altar. Terry appeared to be in a deep sleep, and Karen pulled out the hem of her shirt and began carefully wiping blood off the other woman’s face. She saw Terry’s eyelids flutter, then Terry lurched over onto her side and began retching. The vomit was bloody, and Terry stopped only long enough to catch her breath before the retching wracked her body again and again. Karen cradled her friend’s head and rubbed her back, wishing there were something else she could do to help her. On the other side of the room, Frank and Justin were both covered in the black ichor that spilled out of the creature’s wounds. Justin was struggling against the net and trying to punch the creature, grunting “You won’t rape my friend.” Leigh set down the net gun and ran across the room, pulling out her knife. Tony came up on the opposite side of the pile of dead bat and living men with a machete in his hand. As Leigh cut the 2 men free of the netting, Tony cut the head off the creature with a single strong blow, causing even more ichor to splatter out onto all of them.

It took a little work, but Leigh and Tony eventually got men, net and bat untangled enough to get the men out while leaving the creature’s still and headless form wrapped tightly in the net. As soon the men were free, Leigh took the med kit over to help Terry. But Justin had no sooner regained his feet than his cell rang. He tried to find a less disgusting portion of his clothes to wipe his hands on, then he answered. It was Fr. Colin. “Yer breakin’ up,” he told Justin. “Because I’m deep underground,” he replied with just a hint of exasperation. “Aren’t ye supposed ta be on yer honeymoon?” Fr. Colin asked. Justin mumbled something grumpily, managing to avoid swear words. “What do you know about Vampire legends?” he asked the priest. “Got a lot of battery?” Fr. Colin asked. “Think really old,” Justin told him. “Ah. Like the European vampires,” Fr. Colin began. “Dracula, the original one, is dead,” he continued. “And....” “What about Camazotz?” Justin interrupted him. “We’re in Cancun.” “Oh. Well, I don’t know much about Mexican ones. But I can do some research,” Fr. Colin told him. “Can you get us Holy wafers?” Justin asked impatiently. “I’ll have to find someone there who can work with you,” Fr. Colin answered. “I’ll call you back.” Justin closed the phone and told the others what the priest had said.

As soon as Frank had shaken as much of the ichor off his hands as he could, he crossed the room to check on Terry. Over his shoulder, he suggested that they drag the bat out and stake it in the sun. He didn’t know if it would work or not, but it couldn’t hurt. As soon as Terry saw Frank she launched herself at him, wrapped herself around him and started sobbing. It wasn’t loud, but Frank felt her whole body shake with each sob, stopping only for an occasional gasp for air; and if she’d been hanging on to him any tighter, she’d have snapped his neck. Leigh got alcohol swabs out of the kit and began wiping blood and ichor off of the two. Karen began collecting the gear that had gotten dropped or scattered around the room, with Justin and Tony secured the bat’s body and head for transport. “I like my idea of someplace for a date better,” Frank said to Terry. There was a snort and an almost-laugh from the shoulder she’d buried her face in, then her whole body shuddered again. Frank dug around in his pocket with one hand and pulled out a little tube. He persuaded Terry to lift her head, and he wiped a thin smear of camphor gel under her nose, to kill the stench of blood and ichor that covered most of them and filled the room. From where he, Terry and Leigh stood near the altar, Frank suggested that they leave the spear in the creature’s body until it was ‘ashed’ in the sun, and the others heartily agreed.

Beyond minor cuts and bruises, Terry didn’t appear seriously injured; but whatever the thing had done to her had weakened her, and with the mental and emotional trauma, she was in no condition to make it out under her own power. Frank and Leigh helped her through the passageways, and the other three followed with as much equipment as they could carry. At about midnight, as Frank, Terry and Leigh stepped first out of the stairwell they were blinded by a bright light in their faces. For a second, the rescuers were concerned that the local police were actually investigating Professor del Gado’s death that very night. “Frank? You look like hell!” Angie said. All Frank could do was sigh. He and Leigh helped Terry sit on what was once a wall, and Aiden came over and began checking her over, forgetting that Frank was more than qualified to have already done so. “Is she OK?” Aiden asked, looking up at Frank. “Sitting right here,” Terry said to him. “Are you OK?” Aiden asked her. “Yes,” she answered. But she didn’t look it. Even in the dim light of the flashlight Frank was now holding she looked pale, and the remaining smears of blood and ichor and bloody vomit didn’t make the picture any healthier-looking.

Aiden apologized for not having been back sooner, as he checked Terry’s vitals. It had taken a little while to calm down Professor de la Ruiz, and then it took a while longer to get back because Angie was driving, he explained. “She won’t take directions,” he huffed. “I knew where we were,” she replied. “And that’s why we had to double back?” Aiden retorted. Angie snorted and stomped off to help the others. Justin let Terry know that Frank had brought some clean clothes for her, and Leigh set up one of the tents for her to use. She handed Terry the clothes and a few rags and bottles of water as Frank helped her into the tent. He exited a moment later, giving her a little privacy, and grabbed a couple more rags and one of the cans of kerosene to clean the ichor off himself. When they’d gotten the first load of equipment out, Karen, Tony and Justin went back in for another load and Aiden joined them. Angie stayed outside with Leigh to guard the compound and set up another tent. When everything else was out, the four made one last trip in and Tony, Aiden and Justin dragged out the bat, with Karen opening the secret doors ahead of them so they didn’t lose their momentum once they got going. Outside, Karen studied the ‘clearing’ and her compass, and they moved the bat-bundle to a spot where she thought it would get hit as soon as possible by the morning sun.

When Frank had gotten as cleaned up as he could, he pulled a bottle of Jack Daniels from his gear. He went over to Terry’s tent and quietly stuck the bottle through the door-flap, unsure if she was finished dressing. Against the side of the tent, the others watched as her shadow grabbed the bottle with one hand and Frank’s arm with the other and yanked him inside. A moment later, they saw his shadow and hers lock in an embrace; then the light inside the tent clicked off. Terry kissed Frank with a great deal of intensity. “I have no idea what that thing was doing, and I doubt I would have liked it if I had,” she whispered roughly to him. “But all I could think about was that you were going to get killed trying to find it.” Terry paused. “Thank you,” she told him. Another pause, as they moved to sit beside one another on the ground. “Ya know, I’m really getting sick and tired of getting kidnapped by flying ugly things,” she told him. “Here. This might help,” he replied, handing her a gun. She smiled tiredly, and asked him if she had “Sacrifice me” written somewhere on herself in invisible ink. “I guess I’ll just have to stick close to you,” she said, grinning a little wider. “Then I can shove you out in front next time.” She leaned against Frank’s side and he put his arm around her.

Outside, the others planned a watch schedule. Leigh had settled near the front of Terry’s tent so that she and Frank wouldn’t be disturbed; but it never sounded like they were getting into any compromising positions. The two were both quiet for a while, then Terry began to tell Frank what she could remember of the past 24 hours. There was cutting and bleeding, and something forced her to drink blood; then she felt weird and passed out. Frank handed her a small bottle of holy water. “Here. Drink this,” he told her. He wasn’t sure what it would do to her, but hopefully it would help cleanse her system of whatever the creature had done to her. She took the bottle and tipped it slowly against her lips, then drank greedily. He could sense the residual of contact with the Unknown on her; it wasn’t the feeling of a creature possessed by the Unknown, but more like that of someone that had been affected by it. When she’d emptied that bottle, Frank came out of the tent for more, and the others could see that both of them were still fully clothed. Frank suggested that Angie and Tony take Professor del Gado’s Jeep and leave it about a mile up the trail, to slow down the police if they did decide to investigate del Gado’s death first thing in the morning. Justin followed in another Jeep, both to give the other two a ride back and so that he could pull the distributor cap and slow the cops down even more. And if the police did manage to get in there before the team had cleared out, they could just tell them that the Jeep had broken down and they didn’t want to risk it being stolen if they couldn’t get back to it right away.

As he got more water, Frank told Aiden, Leigh and Karen what Terry had just told him, and they suggested that he also give her some of the energy bars they’d packed. She’d need the protein to help her body replace the blood she’d lost. And the chocolate coating wouldn’t hurt! He took the water and protein bars into the tent; and when Justin, Angie and Tony got back, the first pair started their watch. All in all, the night was quiet. Each pair on watch could hear the cries of jaguars and the sounds of other nocturnal denizens of the Mexican jungle. But most of those creatures gave the camp a wide berth. Karen barely slept. She was still feeling the spiders crawling on her skin; and though she would doze off from sheer exhaustion, she never slept for more than a half hour at a time, and often for less, before her body would jerk her awake from the phantom touch of the imagined spiders. While it bothered her that she was still reacting to the earlier ‘attack’ and that she wasn’t getting any sleep, she was more upset about the fact that she was keeping Justin awake too. She felt guilty, even though he never complained and he kept comforting her and reassuring her that it was alright. And she wondered again just how she’d managed to deserve such a wonderful guy. She and Leigh had taken the last watch, and she spent the entire three hours pacing the clearing, stopping and shuddering every time anything--a falling leaf, an insect, or even the occasional breeze--touched her skin. The local police never did show up that night. They undoubtedly understood the dangers of being out in the jungle at night.

The sun rose on Dec. 29 to brighten a cloudless sky. The light poured like warm butter across the clearing and across the dead creature’s form. The thing was even uglier by daylight than it had been in the light from the flashlights. But it didn’t burn to ashes from the sunlight’s touch as they’d hoped it would. Maybe it wouldn’t burn until precisely noon. Or maybe it wasn’t vulnerable to sunlight at all. The group was pondering the implications of that thought around 8:30am, when Justin’s phone rang. “Buenos dias, Senor Justin,” a male voice said to him. Justin responded in Spanish, and the conversation continued in that language. The man introduced himself as Fr. Ignatio, of the Church of the Holy Virgin. Fr. Colin had contacted him and asked him to offer Justin a very special item that only the Church could supply, he said. Justin told him that he wouldn’t be able to come for the item right away, and the priest told him to just call when he needed the help. Justin then asked if he knew anything about local legends or if he knew of anyone else who could answer some questions. Fr. Ignatio suggested Justin talk to Professor de la Ruiz at the university, and Justin, remembering what Karen had said last night about her being evil, asked the priest if the professor could be trusted. “Of course,” he replied. Justin took her number without further comment, then thanked the priest and hung up. He told the others what the priest had said, then dialed Fr. Colin’s number.

Fr. Colin answered promptly, and Justin put the call on ‘speaker phone.’ The creature didn’t have much by way of vulnerabilities, Fr. Colin told them, besides a mahogany stake. Justin used the phone’s camera to take a picture of the spear and sent it to Fr. Colin, then he and Tony got a little silly and insisted on sending another picture of Tony standing with one foot on the creature in a ‘Great White Hunter’ pose. When the snickering had quieted down, Fr. Colin told them that wild onions were said to work to keep the creature away much like garlic did with European vampires. That was all he’d been able to find so far about killing the thing, so they’d definitely want to leave the spear in. He’d also discovered that the creature would ‘take one wife’ every ten years. He hadn’t found details about how the creature chose her or what it did to her, but after sleeping for 2-6 months, she would awake with a great hunger. At first it was for insects, then the blood of animals, and eventually for human blood. After 10 years of living with these increasingly perverse appetites, the creature’s “wife” had become pretty much insane, and she would end up wandering into a city and going on a rampage of killing until she herself was killed. Frank looked at Terry. “How do you feel?” he asked her. “Hungry,” she replied. He handed her another protein bar.

Karen and Leigh put their heads together for a minute, then Karen raised a Sphere. Nothing happened to either Terry or the dead bat-creature. Leigh raised a Mental Shield, but again nothing happened. Frank checked Terry again for any Unknown influence. He still sensed the same feeling as last night, but this time he was sure that it was just residual from having been in contact with the bat. So basically, they all concluded, the only thing they could do was bury the thing with the spear in its chest, somewhere where no one else (everyone looked pointedly at Karen, who said “What? It’s what archaeologists DO!”) would dig it back up. That was about it, Fr. Colin agreed; but he’d keep researching. When Fr. Colin hung up, the team ate and began cleaning up the ‘camp.’ A couple hours later, just before noon, Fr. Ignatio called again. “I understand you’re going to need a very big box and a lot of concrete,” he said to Justin. “I’ll expect you here at church after the 6pm Mass.” When Justin told the others this, Karen and Tony immediately said that they wanted to go to the Mass. Angie merely stated that she hadn’t gone to Mass since high school, and they all understood that she had no intention of going now. But if Justin, Karen and Tony were going in to Mass, Leigh pointed out, staring at Aiden, someone would need to keep an eye on the bat. Angie and Aiden immediately volunteered. They would all stay put for a few more hours, then head back into town at dusk so people would be less likely to notice and become curious about the large bundle strapped to the roof of the one Rover.

Since the other six were going to deal with disposing of the creature, and Terry was looking decidedly uncomfortable in her own skin, Frank offered to take her back to their hotel. She nearly knocked him over trying to get to the shower. He waited patiently for the hour that the shower was running, surprised that she was still getting any hot water. While he waited, he picked out an outfit for her, basically the same tank-top, blouse and khaki shorts combination she’d been wearing a couple days ago, before she’d been taken. He slipped the clothes inside the bathroom, cracking the door just enough to set them on the counter. There was a long pause after he heard the water shut off, then he could hear Terry vomiting. A moment after she finished, the shower turned back on. After being in the bathroom for a couple hours, Terry came out dressed and looking almost normal again. Frank stood and headed for the bathroom, and Terry handed him ‘product’ as he went by. “That stuff,” she said, looking at the splotches of ichor still covering his clothes, “smells awful.”

Nightfall came more quickly under the jungle canopy, and it was already dark when the other six Envoys started the trip back into town. They parked near the church, and they all got out of the Rovers. Tony, Karen and Justin were going to go in for Mass, and Leigh kept hinting that she and Angie would be fine watching the cars alone if Aiden wanted to go, too. Aiden insisted that he had no intention of going in and that he’d stay with Leigh and Angie. But just as the church bells began ringing for the beginning of Mass, Tony grabbed Aiden’s arm and dragged him through the front doors of the church before he could get free. “I made a promise to Fr. Andrew,” Tony whispered to Aiden. “He’s dead. He should be leaving me alone by now,” Aiden hissed back. “Tony has a crush on Leigh,” Aiden whispered to Justin and Karen, as the four made their way up the aisle. “It might have escalated the other night,” Tony told them. “But I can’t tell how much.” “She wasn’t with you,” Aiden whispered at Tony. “Yes she was,” Tony whispered back. “Can we talk about this later, after Mass?” Justin asked the two. Karen was trying hard to ignore ‘the three stooges’ walking ahead of her. Aiden kept trying to stop at pews farther back, and Tony kept prodding him further up the aisle until the four were sliding into the very front pew.

Karen obviously had a lot on her mind. All during Mass, though she chanted along with every prayer even though they were being said in Spanish, she kept her eyes closed, her hands folded, and her head bowed. It had been a long time since she’d gone to Mass on a regular basis. She’d drifted away from the religion in which she’d been brought up, though she’d never fully committed herself to the religion of her adoptive tribal family either. The strength of Fr. Andrew’s faith had been drawing her back to Catholicism (even though she had to admit that he did seem overly hung-up on the ‘guilt’ and self-denial parts), but his death had left her feeling cut adrift again. After what had happened last night, though, she felt obliged to offer a little thanks to The Guy Upstairs. She still wasn’t planning on making any deals with Him, ‘do this for me and I’ll do that for you’ stuff. But, it sure seemed like He’d come through for them all last night. And Weeping Sparrow had warned/reminded her that sooner or later she’d need to make a choice and commit to it. Maybe it was time for her to start accepting the possibility that He’d always been doing more for her than she’d wanted to admit, and to start giving back the little He asked for in return. She wasn’t really good at asking for or accepting help from anyone. But if she could loosen up and learn to do it with Justin, surely she could make the effort for Him, too. And if she was ever going to figure out exactly what Fr. Andrew’s crucifix was telling her, she’d probably be needing all the help she could get. This was going to be the start. And when she made up her mind, it suddenly got much easier to ask Him to help her protect her mom–and to let Fr. Andrew know she said ‘Hi.’

After Mass, the four continued to sit while everyone else filed out. The guys had started arguing in whispers again almost as soon as Fr. Ignatio had gotten past them during the recessional. Tony was still insisting that Leigh had come to his room and had sex with him and the college girls the other night. Justin kept insisting that Tony was delusional. And Aiden was insisting that Leigh had spent that night with Reg and Raimon, which actually was the truth. Karen continued to pretend to ignore them, but this time she was actually laughing to herself behind her folded hands. She wasn’t sure which of them was right, but she’d always thought that Tony might be more of a gentleman than he appeared. On that point she must’ve been wrong, because a gentleman wouldn’t have been going around telling everyone that a particular woman had had sex with him unless he was sure about it and sure that she wanted the world to know. And Karen was pretty sure that, even if Leigh HAD been with Tony, she’d have admitted it unless she didn’t want the world knowing.

Fr. Ignatio stood at the back of the church for a couple minutes waiting for the four stragglers to leave, before he realized that Justin must have brought friends. He came up and introduced himself, and each of the four did the same. When the priest noticed that only Justin seemed to speak any Spanish, he switched to English for the benefit of the other three. He asked them to follow him, and he led them out a side door and across a small enclosed courtyard. On the far side, near a small gate, there was a large crate, about the size of a piano crate, and a small cement mixer with a pile of bags of mix next to it. He hoped that this was what Justin needed, but Fr. Colin was both specific and not specific when he called earlier. Justin asked if Fr. Colin had told him anything about their ‘problem.’ Fr. Colin hadn’t, Fr. Ignatio said, because he really didn’t want to know about it. Right now, all he was doing was a favor for a fellow priest, as a professional courtesy. If he knew what was going on, it might become more than that, and he had a feeling that it was safer for himself and his parish if he didn’t know.

When Fr. Ignatio went back inside, asking only that Justin close the gate when he had loaded everything, the team brought the Rovers around and got it all loaded and the mixer hitched to the back. Then they started to discuss where they could bury the creature. Obviously it had to be somewhere that other people (and again, they all looked pointedly at Karen, who was beginning to feel a little about her choice of profession) wouldn’t dig it up. Karen assured them that with a few minutes to study a local map, she could probably figure out a place that was unlikely to be excavated, at least not for archaeological reasons. But hiding the site in the jungle would be their best option, and digging a hole the size they’d need was going to be a pain with all the roots from trees and other jungle flora. Angie started snickering and the others turned to see a wounded look on Tony’s face. He and Angie could make the hole for them and no one would even get their hands dirty, he told them. Duh! Of course! The others apologized for their lack of appreciation for Tony skills, and readily agreed to let him and Angie explode the jungle floor for them. A short time later they were on their way, Karen giving them directions from the map laid across her lap. They found a likely spot, not too close or too far from the city or from any of the other known or suspected ruins. Tony and Angie made quick work of the hole, and Leigh and Karen stood watch while the other four got the box in the hole and the creature in the box. At least, its body. They dug through the Rovers and managed to find another box that was just the right size for its head, and they buried that separately. Once the boxes were filled with cement, they were covered, and more cement was poured over them. They waited for it to set, then covered over the cement-filled holes with dirt and debris. As a finishing touch, Tony and Angie rigged a vine-covered tree to fall over the spot.

When Frank had come out of the bathroom freshly showered and in clean clothes, Terry sighed wistfully and wished out loud that the cruise ship hadn’t left already. She really wasn’t keen on staying in that hotel room, that city, or even that country any longer. She wanted to sail away somewhere beyond the reach of big ugly flying creatures, and sit in a lounge chair drinking fruity drinks with little umbrellas in them. Frank checked their itinerary, since he’d already booked them space on the cruise. The ship wasn’t scheduled to leave port for another half-hour. If they got their stuff packed right away.... Terry was out of the chair and flinging her things into her bag before Frank even finished his thought. Frank went back to his own room and did the same, and the two still had just enough time left to leave a note for the others in Leigh’s room before they dashed off to the docks. As they slowed down to a casual stroll on their way through the central lobby, Frank mentioned that he’d HEARD that the Presidential Suite had suddenly become available. Terry laughed and asked if he was paying and if he was getting them two rooms. Heck, that one suite was large enough for seven, Frank told her. They didn’t even have to SEE each other when they were in it, if she didn’t want. Terry paused for a minute. Justin and Karen were probably going to be mad enough at them for getting on the ship before them when they were out ‘cleaning up,’ she said to Frank. The two might never talk to either her or Frank again if they stole their room. Well, it wasn’t really stealing, Frank countered, since they’d given up the room willingly. Terry stared at him for another few seconds, then a grin spread across her face. A moment later the two were approaching the Purser’s desk and getting reassigned to the Presidential Suite.

The other six dragged back into Cancun about midnight. Karen had been complaining during the drive back about the ship having left already. Tony told them that getting a chopper to take them out to it in the morning wouldn’t be a big deal. Karen just stared. “Oh, yeah,” Tony said, “maybe we forgot to tell youse guys. We’re booked on it too.” Karen just groaned and dropped her head into her hands. If this was God’s idea of a joke, she didn’t really appreciate His sense of humor. When they got back to the hotels, Leigh handed Justin and Karen the key that Reg had given her. His room had been paid for already, and she still had her own room in the other hotel. Even though they all wondered how Terry was, no one wanted to disturb her at that hour, so they didn’t go to her or Frank’s rooms. But a few minutes after they’d settled into their various rooms, Leigh called them all to let them know that Frank and Terry had gotten on the cruise ship before it left port earlier that evening. They’d left a note saying, “Caught the ship on the way out. The ship is safe. See you later.” Karen would have hurled her cell across the suite if Justin hadn’t seen her arm start to cock back and stopped her. DAMN it! WE interrupted OUR HONEYMOON to help FRANK rescue TERRY so that those two could sail off on OUR CRUISE SHIP! Karen stomped her foot but she didn’t say a word, though Justin could see the thought written on her forehead and in her clenched jaw. She didn’t know whether to scream or to cry. This was SO not fair! Justin felt bad that he couldn’t make everything better for his beautiful wife. He offered to get them onto some other cruise, even though they’d have to pay for it themselves. Karen refused. She really appreciated the thought, and it wasn’t that she was afraid to spend the money. But she wasn’t about to let the others ruin their honeymoon any more than it already had been. Besides, Drew was still in their room. And it was a big ship and the Purser owed them; they didn’t have to see any of the others unless they wanted to. And right now, she absolutely didn’t.

Terry’s first night on the ship hadn’t been as relaxing as she’d hoped for. She spent the first few hours consuming dozens of the ‘frufru’ drinks, until Frank had to help her back to their room. Then she sent some of the drinks back out into the sewer system. When she finally collapsed into the bed, she had nightmares. Frank woke her when they got too bad. The worst thing, she told him tiredly, was that she didn’t even remember much. She asked hesitantly for some ‘comfort,’ unsure of how to ask and unsure how Frank would take the request. Frank laid on the bed beside her and let her get comfortable against his side before wrapping his arms around her. She fell back to sleep, and the human contact seemed to quiet the dreams. She still woke a couple times during the night, but Frank didn’t want to give her any drugs unless she wanted to take them. In the morning, he let her know that was an option, and she told him that she would ask if she felt she needed them.

Back in Cancun that morning, Dec. 30, Angie called Leigh and asked to have breakfast with her. It seemed that Aiden had told her about his conversation with Tony at the church, and Angie wanted to let Leigh know that Tony still had a crush on her and that he somehow got the idea that the attraction was mutual. It sounded like he was beginning to forget that he forgot Leigh coming to the room, and he was instead ‘remembering’ things that never happened, to fill in what he assumed were just alcohol-induced holes in his memory. When the six had eaten and packed, they met in the lobby of the luxury hotel. Karen was looking a little sullen, and she barely spoke three words. Tony had already gotten the concierge to hire a chopper to take them and their luggage out to the ship, and in no time they were skimming over the Caribbean Sea, closing in on the cruise ship. Leigh had maneuvered to get her and Tony sitting together in the back seat of the chopper, and she tried to straighten him out on the ride over. She saw him nude on the beach, and he her, but that was it, she told him. She hadn’t ‘done’ anything with him. She’d spent that night with Reg and Raimon. “I understand,” Tony replied. “Nothing happened. I’ve been there. But, anytime you want to ‘spend time with Reg and Raimon,’ just say so.” He smiled at her. All she could do was close her eyes and shake her head.

“So, it was just a little fun between friends,” he thought to himself. “What happens in Cancun, stays in Cancun. But...we ARE going to a cruise ship....” He smiled to himself. The chopper landed on the helipad, and the Envoys began unloading their gear. Tony grabbed Justin and Aiden and pulled them aside. “That ‘thing’ I told you about? That didn’t happen,” he told them with a grin and a wink. Justin stopped for a second and stared at Tony. “You’re nutty!” he told him as Tony went back to pull out his bags. Angie came over to hand Aiden a bag as he was saying to Justin “I think it’s cute that he’s so enamored of her that he wants it to be true.” Angie grinned, “I’d do him.” Aiden gave her a dirty look, then Justin asked if it was possible to get Tony a ‘CAT’ scan. “If Drew’s on the ship we could give him one,” Angie said, trying to look innocent. Aiden groaned and complained that the joke was older than her. Justin wasn’t sure he’d ever heard the whole thing, so Angie proceeded to tell it, laughing when Aiden groaned again. Aiden covered his ears and wandered off to get her bag. As soon as Karen and Justin had all their stuff, Karen practically dragged Justin off to their room. She refused to even acknowledge the existence of the others until the cruise was over, even if it meant spending the entire time in their room. She even went so far as to call the Purser and demand that the others be kept away from her and Justin.

Around lunch time, Leigh went looking for Karen. She really needed to talk to a female friend about Tony’s delusions. Through the doorway into one of the smaller dining rooms, she could see Justin and Karen having lunch. She started to walk towards them and was stopped by one of the Assistant Pursers. He scanned through a list on the clipboard he was carrying and told Leigh that “the Kazotchek’s” didn’t wish to be disturbed. Leigh asked if she could at least have him deliver a note to Karen for her and he told her that wasn’t possible. Leigh wandered off, disappointed and a little hurt. She had nothing to do with camera or mike; in fact, she’d tried to talk Frank and Angie out of the practical jokes. But she supposed she could understand why Karen and Justin wanted to be left alone. The team’s presence had disrupted their honeymoon. She found Frank and Terry out on deck with fruity drinks and floppy hats, people-watching. Terry looked significantly better than she had yesterday, and the two asked Leigh to join them. Terry thanked her for the team coming to find her. “It was that or go babysit Reg’s nieces in San Francisco,” Leigh told her with a sad smile. What an awful pair of choices she’d had to pick from--rescue a friend kidnapped by a creature of the Unknown, or go with another friend, who also happened to be a potential boyfriend, because his family had suffered a tragic fire.

Leigh started to explain her predicament with Tony to the two. He apparently couldn’t be satisfied with having a good time with 4 college-aged girls. “Hope they were legal,” Terry interjected. “Probably in Mexico they were,” Frank said. Leigh continued. He’d gotten the idea that she’d been with the ‘group’ too because of an off-hand remark she made when she went to fetch him to help. Then he tried to convince Justin and Aiden it had happened. Now, he had convinced himself it happened, when nothing had happened at all in the first place! Terry jokingly offered to break Tony’s knees for Leigh, but Leigh didn’t think that would help. He’d probably find some way of using that to support his fantasy. Unfortunately, Frank told her, they wouldn’t let the two bring their guns onto the ship. Leigh mentioned having been stopped from speaking to Karen and Justin by the Purser. Frank almost grinned. At least HE wasn’t going to take that as a challenge. Angie, on the other hand.... Terry suggested that maybe they could all just ease off on the harassment for now. Frank agreed that he could lay off them....

Then Terry asked Leigh if she could see where it was written on her body “Kidnap Me.” Frank said that she hadn’t let him inspect her that closely yet. She grinned. She kind of figured that it must be some place a bit more visible, since apparently so many things could see it. Leigh suggested that maybe she should have someone--other than Tony--take a look spectrally. “Why not Tony,” Terry asked her. “Because he’ll probably get the idea that you want out-of-body sex,” Leigh said. “Besides,” Frank added, “then Leigh will get jealous.” The women looked around, concerned that Tony might hear the conversation and take it the wrong way. Frank told them it wasn’t Tony he was worried about, it was Angie. “So, how long do you think THAT will last?” Terry asked him. “As long as Angie keeps getting the adrenalin rush while she’s with him,” Frank replied. “So, you’re telling me I did my part for keeping them together by getting kidnapped?” Terry said. The three laughed and turned their wit to commenting on other people going by, mostly those with cosmetic ‘enhancements.’ They even began arguing whether or not some of the women would need the life jackets the ship provided if they fell overboard.

The next couple days went relatively smoothly. Leigh was eventually able to get through to Karen later that afternoon and asked to meet her for coffee. Karen relented. She couldn’t imagine that Leigh actually had anything to do with Frank’s ‘gifts.’ Leigh told her about Tony’s delusion, and Karen told her about the guys arguing about it in the church. The next night, New Year’s Eve, Karen and Justin found the others at one of the ship’s nightclubs, and celebrated the beginning of the New Year with them. The next day, Karen called the Purser and had him cancel the ‘do-not-disturb’ order. She never could hold a grudge, and these people were her friends. She was even able to laugh about Frank’s awful sense of humor when it got directed at Tony. Tony had come on the cruise looking for nubile single young women. Too bad the ship was mostly populated by single OLD women who were less than nubile. He might not have been interested in them, but they were certainly hot for him. When one woman, who must have been in her 80s, studied Tony a little too intensely one night, Frank sent her a drink with Tony’s cell number written on the napkin. The aftermath was insanely funny to the others, but Tony acted the complete gentleman and let the woman down gently. He’d started looking in his ‘target range’ of the late teens and 20s. When he couldn’t find any woman in that age group, he expanded his search to include divorcees in their 30s or 40s on the cruise with female friends or relative, or even staff members in the right age brackets as long as he thought they could be discreet enough to not get caught. By the end of the cruise, he’d managed to land a recently-divorced 34-year-old who was there to celebrate her new-found freedom. The two celebrated it together--no strings attached.

JUSTIN’S WAR JOURNAL
Entry 59 [>>>transcribed from digital audio and ---typed]

>>>Going down into tunnel. Karen and Leigh say the markings on the walls make this for sure a temple.

>>>Fucking spiders! Don’t know if that was some kind of ancient Aztec trap or just a bunch of spiders we scared out of their nests. Size of a small freaking fist! Fuck! Had to pull back and get them all off. Soon as everybody was out of the stairs, Frank tossed in one of those little kerosene lantern tanks and set it off with one shot. Whoompf, no more spiders. Stinks though. Had to get the spiders out of our clothes and hair. Tied up hair. Duck tape closed all the gaps in our clothes. Gah. Creepy crawlies. Poor Karen is probably going to be freakin’ out about this for days from the looks. Poor baby. I don’t know how to help. [deep breath in and out] We’re going back in.

>>>Something put out all our lights as soon as we got past the bottom of the stairs. Or more like something made more darkness than our lights could deal with. Could hear my Zippo spark and ignite and could feel the heat from the flame but there was no light at all. Chem lights didn’t work either.

We ended up using sort of a mountain climbing strategy to cross the room. Person in front was anchor. Everybody threads past. Person who is now in front is new anchor. Repeat. Everybody tied off with climbing rope as we did first pass. Got us across the room okay. Frank got a chem. Light to work again when we got to far wall. We turned our lights back on and they’re fine now. But light doesn’t carry down here. Like there’s clear cut edges where the light is strongest and that’s it and the dark won’t give up any more. No light from the stairs bleeds out into the room at the bottom. The dark cuts it off like a knife. There’s a rectangle of light where the stairs are but that’s it. Later.

>>>Think we found how to get to Terry with Frank’s nose. He gave her some perfume and he swears he can smell it. Air down here is so damn stale that I guess it makes sense that something like that could linger. Good thing too cause I’m not finding much of nothing in the way of tracks. Everything’s stone, hardly any dirt.

Came to a dead end wall. Mural carved in it of a big bat. Hole in its mouth just about the right size for a finger. Frank tested it with gun barrel. Heard a real quiet sound of metal on metal. He pulled it back and the barrel had a really slight cut line. Razor thin but not very deep. Figured out that should be just deep enough to draw blood. Frank used a syringe to draw some blood and squirt it in the hole so nobody had to let themselves be cut by some thousand year old, covered in who knows what, razor knife. Blood was all it took. A whole section of the wall pivoted. It shut as soon as we all got past. Later.

>>>Great, it’s a maze. I hate mazes. Their worse than wiring diagrams. Good thing Frank was letting out that string behind us. Made backtracking to where we made the wrong turn easier. Seems like there might have been a pattern but I didn’t figure it out. Maze dead ended at another mural. This one pissed me off. Female figure in the front with giant bat figure behind her. Karen and Leigh said it showed a wedding ceremony of some kind. That wasn’t what I thought it was. But making Terry marry it without her consent is the same thing as rape. Nobody rapes my friend without paying a steep price. Found a hole in the bat picture’s mouth. Going to have to do the same blood in the hole shit again. Going to make you pay ya fucking bat freak…

>>>We got Terry back and the bat is as dead as it’s going to get for right now. We’re out of the bat temple and making camp til the sun comes up. Everything came down fast and hard there at the end. And it came down on top of our heads.

The whole “wedding” mural section of the wall lifted up after Frank squirted the blood in the hole. Past that was a football stadium size cave. We could see Terry laid out on a big stone altar on the far side. No sign of the bat. We got ready for a showdown. Took a sec to realize that Frank was frozen in place, staring up at the ceiling. I got behind him and shined the flashlight where he was looking. The bat was diving right at Frank.

Camazoot was making some awful howling screeching roaring noise as it dove. I think Leigh used that Mind Shield trick cause I felt like my insides were turning to water and I felt for sure I was going to run but then that feeling went away and Frank unfroze. I got a shot off from just behind Frank. Took out one of the fucker’s big ass eyes with that shot. I heard the AK-74 chattering from off to one side and I knew Tony had joined the party. He had tracers staggered in the mag for sure because I saw a line of fire leading that big furry frick just right. Stitched it right up one side.

Took me a second to process what Frank was doing. He was holding a wood spear and had it braced in both hands so Camazoot was going to have to eat that hunk of wood if he wanted to hit Frank. I don’t even want to know how Frank got that spear. I don’t know for sure that it was the spear from the school museum but it sure looked it. As far as I know, Frank just happened to be carrying a six foot mahogany spear around with him.

Leigh popped off that net gun right when it looked like Camazoot was trying to change course. I figure it thought Frank was still froze from whatever it did to him from up there on the ceiling and it was surprised to see him move. Let alone how surprised it was when it saw he had its death in his hands. The net fouled up bat-boy’s wings and it couldn’t change course. It body slammed right into Frank. The spear went straight through its heart. Probably killed it instantly. But the damn thing weighs about 300 pounds and it was diving at us at like 35 mile per hour so it wasn’t like it was going to stop just from hitting a pointy stick. It barreled into Frank and then both of them into me. The net got wrapped around all three of us. Good thing that Camazoot was dead cause it was the only one in that tangle with teeth and claws. I could barely get a knife out let alone use it worth a damn. That thing could have tore us up pretty bad by the time the rest of the crew was able to cut us loose. Just to make sure, Tony lopped its head off with a machete once the net was clear. Made sure it was good and dead.

Gotta hand it to Karen. She was the only one that really kept her eye on the prize down there. We got all tied up in fighting Camazootey and she kept her head, kept the human factor in mind. The reason we’re doing this. She went after the reason we were even there. While we were popping holes in Camazoot, Karen ran straight for Terry and pulled her off that altar. Got a bunch of blood puked up on her for her trouble too. Thank god it wasn’t Terry’s blood. The way it was explained to me, Fuzzbutt had been force feeding her blood. It was trying to turn her into its bride. Maybe Fuzzy was trying to breed a new group of cult members or something like that. By the time we were cutting loose from the net, Karen was already helping Terry back across the room. And Terry was more than ready to get out of there as soon as possible.

We wrapped the bat back up in the net and carried it out. Good thing Frank let that string out behind us or it would have took a lot longer than it did. Made sure that spear wasn’t going to move. No way. No how. Finally got a call back from Fr. Cullen. He doesn’t know much of anything about the Camazoot but he said he’d do what he could to find us some contacts down here. Leigh tried getting hold of Dee but just got her answering machine. Dee’s probably still taking care of that poor hubby of hers. We couldn’t get hold of any of our other contacts. I even tried the number where I used to get hold of Fr. Damien. I figured if anybody would know about an ancient bat demon the Jesuits might but the number has been disconnected.

Didn’t want any late night surprise visitors driving out here so we drove del Gado’s jeep back up the game trail to a real narrow spot and parked it there. I fiddled a couple things on the engine so it’s not going anywhere til I want it to. Last thing we need is to get jumped by some drug thugs looking for an out of the way place to do their dirty work. Or somebody coming to raid the ruins. Not to mention keeping out any local authorities. Might be kinda difficult to explain exactly what it is we’ve got trussed up in the net in the tree. It would really suck after all we’ve been through to end up stuck in a Mexican federalie prison on some screwed up poaching charge. Gotta get some sleep before it’s my turn on watch. More later.

>>>Well so much for Buffy mythology. At least when it comes to ancient giant bat monsters. It’s bright and early, the morning of Dec. 28th and we just found out direct sunlight does NOT turn Camazoot the Fuzzbutt into a pile of ashes. How come this is never easy? These stupid Things don’t belong in this world so how come their dead bodies don’t just evaporate away or something like that? Jeesh. Not only do we have to fight the things but we have to do the clean up too? That’s right Justin, join the Fight for Good and Right and become the world’s karmic janitor. Phooey. I shoulda folded that stupid card three ways and shoved it up Aiden’s nose. Where’s the frigging coffee?!?

>>>Heard from Fr. Cullen. He’s got a local contact for us. Should have what we need later today. Church not far from here. Frank took Terry back to the hotel. Can’t blame her for wanting to get out of here. Pretty sure she had more of that bottle of whisky last night than Frank did. Can’t blame her for not wanting to be alone last night either. I know me and Karen spent a good deal of last night just holding each other. More later.

>>>Fr. Dejesus had what we needed. Got to his church in time for service and sat in. Felt good after what happened last night. The Fr. said he’d been contacted and stuff had been dropped off or us. He also understood that it would be best if he just didn’t know so he left us to our work. Trailer was out back of the church with pretty much everything we needed. Big box, cement mix and mixer and some tools. Hooked up the Rover and boogied on out of there.

No research we could track down could tell us exactly how to make Camazoot’s body go away permanent like so all we can do is bury it. At first we thought about burning it but it seemed too possible the stake would burn through before the body did. And the odds are that would turn Camazoot loose. Probably kind of how It got loose in this day and age in the first place. Prof. Ruiz said they found that spear down in the ruins. Yeah, probably stuck in the middle of Cammy’s rotten rib cage. Happy, happy archeologist thought he found a nifty stick, yanked it out of the ground where some silly ancient person stuck it for no reason, Camazoot regenerates or whatever and next thing you know we’re tracking down some ancient bat demon.

We also thought about burying the carcass on holy ground, like a church graveyard or even under a church but then we figured Camazoot is older than the Christian church by several thousand years at least. So probably not so vulnerable to holiness it’s never even heard of. So buried out in the middle of nowhere in the jungle, deep as we can get it and sealed in a box of concrete will have to do for now. I kinda groaned at first at the thought of digging a hole as deep as we wanted by hand since we didn’t have a backhoe or anything. Tony and Angie just chuckled. Yeah, I forgot we got the Kaboom Twins on our side. Good ol’ Tony looked over at his bag of goodies and said they could make us a nice big hole, no problem. I swear he was rubbing his hands together in glee. He loves blowing stuff up. More later.

>>>Well, it’s late, Camazooty is buried nice and deep and we’re headed back to our hotel. In the morning we’ll see about getting back to the ship. Karen swears she is going to tell the purser to keep everybody else away from us when we get back on board. She’s pretty steamed about the camera and mike prank. Scared us right out of that nice suite and spoiled the honeymoon mood. I think she’s getting with the idea of having a good time just to spite the Fight. Grab whatever good we can get whenever we can. I’m just going to try and help her feel better. Wish I knew how to do that better. Hopefully this is going to be the last entry at least til after the cruise. Later.

>>>Just thought of one last thing. I think we need to find a different nickname for the safe house back home. Calling it the Bat Cave just doesn't feel fun anymore. Done for now.

It was supposed to be a relaxing get away. No troubles, no commitments, no outside issues to confuse things. Terry and I would have a chance to get to know each other, and relax from the chaos that is our normal lives. Cancun in the winter is still a heck of a lot warmer than Detroit. Of course, that would have required the chaos to decide it wanted to play along.

First, Leigh’s apartment picked up a supernatural visitor. An odd little thing that really didn’t like light and seemed to be a rat-man-ghost. Not the most pleasant of house guests. Well, we did all get this bounty on some terrorists, and it wouldn’t be safe for Leigh to have to deal with the thing while we were gone (Justin and Karen have been talking about getting away after Christmas, and Aiden and Angie are heading off somewhere, too), so I picked up and extra ticket for Leigh.

Then we went to dinner with Karen’s soon to be demon, er, father, and it turns out that dear sweet Edward is sending them to Cancun, too. Then we get to the airport, and discover that Aiden and Angie are intending to head to Cancun as well. Almost as if the Elder Evil things out there were conspiring against us, which they were.

We arrived in Cancun, and the first couple of days were actually nice, other than the Mayan god that flew over head. Terry and I were having fun teaching the kiddies on the jet skis how to do chase and pursuit in the whole bumper tag on the high seas. We were also having a grand time playing our own version of “what’s my line” with the tourists, picking out what their lives were like when they weren’t on vacation.

We had some fun with Justin and Karen, although they did not seem to think it was nearly as humorous as the rest of us. The “peek-a-boo bouquet” took on a whole new meaning with the camera hidden in it (not recording, that would be wrong), but for some reason, Justin and Karen didn’t find it funny. Of course, the joke is never as funny when you have to explain it, and we actually had to send them a note for them to find the camera. Boom-boom seems to have decided sending listening devices in other flowers would be fun, too. Justin and Karen were quite paranoid by the time they got to Mexico.

Of course, Angie doesn’t take a joke as well as she gives one. She seemed miffed when I gave her a little observation/reflex test with a mock bomb on her door in the ultra cheap hotel she and Aiden were staying in. She showed up at my room full of bad intentions. I explained to her that we were now even for her attempting to play matchmaker between Terry and myself on the Wendigo adventure. It turns out the big thing she was upset about was bruising Aiden so badly because he was walking into what she thought was a bomb. We agreed that if I bought them dinner, we’d be even. I didn’t see the need to continue the practical jokes any further, and decided to let her relax and enjoy the rest of the vacation.

Then the damn Mayan Bat god decided he needed to fly off with Terry. Fucking Elder Beasties. Apparently, he can make things silent, since it looked like Terry put up a fight, and I didn’t hear anything in the next room. Why is it the bad guys get all the fun powers? Needless to say here the vacation turns into a rescue mission. This is the short version, because the long version just pisses me off.

We find the local bat-demon-god experts, and discover they just made this great find, and pulled the mahogany stake out of super bat demon, setting him loose upon the population. Of course, being archeologists, they don’t realize that there was a damn good reason the Mayans sealed up the temple and put the stake right where it was. “They were a primitive culture, and obviously couldn’t have had a good reason to seal away a temple and leave it all alone in the middle of a jungle.” Modern archeologist = unwitting minion of Evil. This is important to know. Unfortunately, they also tend to gather the useful tidbits that are helpful in putting big ugly creatures in the ground (more on that later) so we can’t just shoot them all.

Anyhow, I ‘reacquire’ the stake so we can shove it back into uber-bat demon, and we head off into the jungle to see if we can keep Terry from becoming tasty blood snack #3,458,156 for the bat-vampire thing, we get to the dig site, we find the dead archeologist (come on, you saw it coming – you freed me from being trapped and loosed me on an unsuspecting population, even though I should reward you, I am an evil piece of shit and hungry, so now you get to be tasty blood snack #3,458,156).

Now we know where the temple is and have to go on a bug hunt to find the darn bat-beast. We wander, we kill spiders, we wander we find a temple, suddenly I can’t move. Okay, this could be a problem. As super bat demon drops from the roof looking to make me blood snack #3,458,157, Leigh reminds me why it is good to have her along and brings up a mental shield. Everyone opens fire on the bat of doom, and since I am suddenly able to move I make a mad grab for the stake and pretend to be a pikeman in an ancient army. Fortunately, the uber bat was blind as a bat and impaled itself on the stake.

Terry, it turns out was not intended to be a snack, but instead the bride of Batula. Why is it that demons have the same taste in women I do? I could spend hours analyzing that question, or why it even popped into my brain. In any case, to make sure no more archeologist try to de-stake the bat demon, we have concreted it into a piano case in the jungle. So it will probably be 200 years from now that the next archeologist will decide they just have to know why someone buried the block of cement in the middle of the jungle and that they just have to see what kind of time vault it is and bust it open. Did I mention that archeologists are minions of evil?

Terry is holding up pretty well, considering the fact that this is the second time that a flying creature of the unknown has decided to carry her off. We spent the rest of the vacation very drunk, and holding each other to make sure neither one of us disappeared in the night. Assuming our heads don’t explode, I think things might work out between the two of us.

JUSTIN’S WAR JOURNAL
Entry 58 [>>>transcribed from digital audio recording]

>>>Okay, this thing’s working. Well, it’s official. The Fight has taken over our lives. I guess no honeymoon for us. Karen is just about devastated and I feel so bad about it. But one of our team needs us so we ARE going. Karen was saying, I hope jokingly, that God must hate us. I told her, and I really believe this, that I think this is proof that God is guiding us. I guess it could be angels or saints or whatever, but there is definitely some Power of Good that is making sure we are in the right places at the right time to help people. Really, what are the odds that we all just happen to end up in Cancun at the same time? If we hadn’t been here then some innocent civilian would have got snatched and the authorities would have just written it off as a missing person case. So God got us all here at the right time to take this Thing on and that’s what we’re going to do.

We’re still in Cancun. It’s December 28th, almost six in the morning. Frank called and we’re on the way to meet him and whoever else shows up. According to Frank, some Thing got into Terry’s room some time last night or this morning and flew off with her. Don’t know why he said flew. Could have been figure of speech but didn’t seem like it. Said he’d fill us in when we get there. Sounds like Reg won’t be showing up. Family emergency. I think he said there was a fire at his sister’s place. His sister and his dad are in the hospital burn ward, both in a coma. Her husband is missing. Weird. Reg’s two nieces weren’t hurt but Reg is their only family and they need him so he’s got to go. God speed Reg.

We laid the ground work for a cover story on the way off the ship. And didn’t really even have to lie. Just had to leave out some of the details. Told the guy at the desk that we met friends in Cancun and we were going to spend some time with them. Karen got a copy of the planned stops for the ship after here. If we’re still alive maybe we can catch up at a later stop and try to salvage some of our honeymoon. More later.

>>>We rolled into the hotel lobby about the same time as Leigh and Tony. Aiden and Angie were already there with Frank. There was no answer from Tony’s phone so Leigh had to go fetch him. Frank took us all up to Terry’s room to give it the once over. Turns out he had to climb across from his balcony to hers to get in when he woke up with a real bad feeling. Found her gone, all of her stuff still there and the room messed up a bit. He slept on it and had one of those weird ass dreams of his. Dream showed him a vision of Terry on like an ancient Aztec sacrifice altar. Good enough for me. Frank’s dreams have proved their worth before. Said he heard what sounded like big wings flapping too.

Called Fr. Collin on the way up to the room. Hoped maybe he could get us in contact with somebody local. All I got was his voice mail though. Left a message without any details that would give anything away to a civilian but no problem understanding if you know what’s going on. Hope he gets back to me soon.

Checked Terry’s room for any clues. Found some snags in the carpet and rolled it back. Gouges in the hardwood floor from some pretty damn big claws. Multiple rear end claws, like feet, but only one larger claw up front. Weird stance. Took us a minute to figure if you took a bat and made it about seven or eight feet tall, you could get marks like this. They use the tips of their wings sort of like front legs when they have to be on the ground. Found a couple more gouges leading toward the balcony. Scratches on the balcony railing. Couldn’t quite tell if they were from when it landed or took off. The railing was scratched but not deformed, so this thing might not be superhuman strong.

Karen and Leigh said there are local legends about people getting snatched by bats. Some kind of giant Mayan man-bat demon from thousands and thousands of years ago. They called it Camazotz and some of those Mayans worshipped it like a god. I think they said those were called blood cults because the worshippers drank blood. I guess the folks that study legends think maybe those cultists mighta been the origin of some of the vampire legends. Drinking blood to be immortal and vampires turning into bats mainly. Maybe the origin of the wooden stake through the heart part too they think. Heart is supposed to be a source of power in all the old legends around here and wood is about the only thing the ancients could have used to make weapons.

Speaking of weapons, Frank had some, bless his paranoid little government-issue heart. He said he got a bad feeling the other night and did some shopping. Not the prettiest pistols in the world but serviceable and in pretty good condition. From there we started putting together plans on what else we needed. Transportation, weapons, camping gear and whatever else we could think of. That’s where we’re headed now. We hit a Range Rover dealership first and picked up a couple with the full trick out. Banks next. Had to start accounts because of the limits on ATM withdrawals. Got several thousand dollars each in traveler’s checks, dollars and pesos.

Frank, Tony and Leigh are going after firepower. Frank said he was pretty sure he saw some of those revolver shotguns me and Tony like and he knows he saw AK-74s of all flavors. Plenty of ammo too. Tony’s going to see if he can track down some kaboom and if not, he’ll try for some everyday stuff that can be put together with surprising results. Aiden, of course, is going to put together another med kit. Should be easier for him here than in the states what with all the stuff available over the counter down here. Angie is going with, to watch his back. Karen and me are getting the camping and hunting gear and whatever tools I can track down, just in case. Karen’s calling the tour director from the ship right now. Sounds like she’s making some progress. More later.

>>>Did good with the camping gear. Picked up just about every kind of light we could find. Hand suns, LED, chemlights, even those flashlights that you shake up to generate power. Found a real good compound bow with a fishing reel set up. Turns out they hunt sharks down here with bows and high test fishing line. BIG sharks. I figure the getup might be useful to get a line on a flier to keep him from flying away. Leigh asked us to look for a net. Did her one better. Found her a net with a launcher. I think it’s basically shoot from the hip mortar kinda thing. Size and shape is kinda like a sawed-off shotgun with a cluster of coffee cans on the front end. Hope it gives our bat-brained kidnapper a hell of a wakeup call.

I hit the jackpot on tools too. Got about half of them from a second hand shop. Just happened to spot them through the store window. How’s that for divine guidance? Most of the stuff from the second hand shop is in nice leather wrap up kits. Beautiful work and more portable than a toolbox. Got a portable welder and a small camp generator too. Good thing Range Rovers have plenty of space. More later.

>>>Karen’s got a lead. Cruise tourist director gave her the name of their local advisors and Karen gave them a call. Got hold of a Professor dela Ruiz. She’s a Professor of Folklore at the University of the Yucatan. Name of the school is lots niftier sounding in Spanish. Said she could show us some of the school’s most exciting new finds from a local dig. She apologized that her partner, Delgado, Professor of Archeology, wouldn’t be part of the tour. She said he’s still out at the dig. We’ve got a feeling this may be what we’re looking for. Can’t meet her til after siesta, so we’re getting the gear divided and stowed in the two trucks. More later.

>>>Yeah, looks like we’re definitely on the right track. Professor dela Ruiz was very proud of their collection. Her and Karen talked over all kinds of pottery shards and stuff. Thing I was interested in the most was a wooden spear, about six feet long. Beautiful work, polished smooth and carved all around. Funky little squat figures and some of them just had to be bats. Squooshed face, pointy teeth, big ears and wings for arms. Kinda universal symbol for bat. Ruiz said it was one of the most recent finds and they hadn’t even had time to translate the markings yet. I asked her about finding something like that from any local wood workers because I thought it would look great in our new den. I was and it would but I was also trying to drop a real broad hint too. I heard some of the folks who dig the ruins down south here can be bought off but this lady wasn’t one of them. Well, we’ve got enough tools with us and there are plenty of trees growing out in the freaking rainforest so we shouldn’t have much of a problem making our own spear.

Professor dela Ruiz was okay with accepting a donation, to the school of course, to guide us out to their new dig. Karen convinced her we wanted to see a real ruin and not the tourist traps. She was more than agreeable. Just like Karen; she wants to share her joy of discovering stuff. Also said she wanted to give her partner a good talking to. She’d been trying to call him all day but she wasn’t getting any response from him. I wish this really was just a school field trip and not a frigging hunting expedition for Dracula’s bigger, uglier Mexican cousin. I’m going to put this thing in one of my pockets and rig it with the clip mike and the little pressure trigger. Won’t be able to talk in front of Ruiz but I should be able to get directions on record in case we don’t make it back and some other team needs to come clean up after us. More later.

>>>Almost ready to go. I’ll be driving the lead Rover and Angie the other. Prof Ruiz is giving Angie a rundown on the route to make sure we don’t get split up. Prof is riding with me in the lead. The Prof didn’t even blink twice about all the hardware we were packing. She just commented about us obviously being well aware of the situations that could happen out in the jungle. And the jaguars were just the beginning. We told her we’d heard about the big cats but mainly we were worried about the stories of foreigners being kidnapped and we weren’t sure if our friends and family back home would pony up the ransom for our crazy butts. That got a laugh all around. The Prof’s packing a .38 on her hip herself. Says she knows about the jaguars and the bad men as well. Aiden’s dousing everybody with heavy duty bug spray. Freaking gnats all over the place and the skeeters down here could carry away a basketball. More later.

>>>Okay, so let me make sure I got this right Professor. So we’re headed northwest out of town. What’s this road called again? Route dela Paaz? Okay. So then, in about a half hour we get off the paved roads. No hope of a road name there, huh? Ha ha! And then we turn right at the big coconut palm tree with lightning damage, right? Okay, let’s see if I can’t get us lost. Hahaha…

>>>Boy, you weren’t kidding about this being little more than a game trail Prof. Almost wouldn’t have spotted it if not for that coconut palm. Can’t miss that big black scar though. Yeah, I can see what you mean about the jungle growing over the trails every day. Some of this looks like it might have grown back since your buddy drove through here this morning. Which means he hasn’t drove back out yet so we should find him at the ruins then, huh? Boy, good thing these Rovers have four wheel drive…

>>>Holy crap! Those are ALL bats, aren’t they? It’s like a solid column of them. Wow. There’s a cave in the hills huh? Slow down some more? Can’t go much slower than this. Good idea though. It’s getting dark fast and the headlights only go so far in this jungle. Wall? What wall? That’s a wall? Okay, it used to be a wall. This looks as good a place as any to park…

>>>Okay, Prof Ruiz went off looking for her buddy. Karen just told us all to keep an eye on Ruiz. Says she got a feeling like Ruiz is bad news but she’s not totally sure. This place could give you the creeps real easy. Even in daylight. The jungle is shoved right in at the edges but there’s no trees growing in this whole big area. It’s like a frigging huge ass football stadium made out of plants. There’s dirty and ground cover plants here and there but you can just scrape that away to see the stones underneath. Big stones. But there’s no pyramid. Isn’t there supposed to be a pyramid? Later.

>>>Well, we found Professor Delgado. Tony practically tripped over him when we left the trucks to head into the ruins. Professor Ruiz was all broke up. Could have been an act but it didn’t seem like it. I think most of us just about freaked out when we rolled him over. Poor bastard’s throat was bit out. And I don’t mean open, I mean out. A good size chunk of his throat was freaking gone. The look on Delgado’s face was absolute, pure horror. The poor guy saw what was coming for him and it scared him stupid. Seeing that look frozen on his face about did the same to us. Karen or Leigh might have done one of those protection things but I was kinda caught up and didn’t quite notice. Ruiz came running and fell on her knees beside her partner. She was beating on his chest, crying her eyes out and basically chewing him out in Spanish. She was saying that he had been stupid to come out in the jungle without his pistol when he knew there were jaguars around. Like that. At least we won’t have to explain away the wound to his throat.

Asked Prof Ruiz if there had been anybody else with Delgado and how he got out here. She said he had a jeep and he came out alone today. So now I’m looking for his jeep so Aiden and Angie can take Ruiz and the body back to town. That will get her out of the line of fire for now. I really wish it hadn’t taken her friend’s death to do it though. And if she is a Thing or maybe just influenced by one, that gets her away from us so she can’t screw with us. Whoop, there’s the Jeep. More later.

>>>Okay, they’re off back to town with the body. I asked Aiden to leave the med kit with us and tried to make sure he understood that he didn’t have to hang around and fill out all the paperwork. He doesn’t have a license to practice down here anyway. Hope that will get him and Angie back here, pronto. Could be all kinds of nifty wounds for him to tend to by then.

With Ruiz out of the way we had a chance to go over what all we’d found out about the body and look around for any other clues. Frank said the size and shape of the bite are right for the size of bat we think we’re after. Almost no blood on the body or the ground. Frank figures it basically swallowed the chunk it bit out of his neck to clear the hole and then just let the blood flow. Major arteries right there and his heart would have just kept pumping away for while. Oh man. This is really making me want to ralf but there’s no time for that right now. Gotta rescue Terry.

I checked around the area for tracks. Found where the Thing landed behind Delgado. Must have been damn quiet cause it doesn’t look like Delgado turned and ran. Looks like it snuck up behind him, waddling on all fours, maybe three steps and then jumped on him. After that, we’re figuring it bit the side of his neck out, drank him dry, waddled a couple steps away from the body and then flew away. Now we just have to find where it flew off to.

Oh yeah, another thing. Frank asked Ruiz if Delgado had bad vision or not. She said that his vision was fine. He’d been talking about getting glasses for close up work but not right away. Frank’s question didn’t make much sense at the time but he explained after Ruiz was gone. He said that Delgado had severe cataracts in both eyes. They were bad enough that Delgado would have been nearly blind. Would have been like looking at the world always in shadows. No way Delgado could have kept vision that bad a secret from Ruiz so it had to have happened some time today. So either this Camazotz fuzz ball did it to him or he ran into something else that gave him instant cataracts.

And we also found a digital camera on Delgado. No clues there; just pictures of the ruins and nothing that looked like what Frank saw in his dream about where to find Terry. I was still looking around trying to figure out where the pyramid was when I finally figured it out. If you worship a bat demon, you don’t build a pyramid that stands up tall in the sky. Nah. Bats like it down in the dark caves underground. So maybe they built their pyramid upside down? I asked and Karen said there’s a real good chance that’s exactly what we’ve got here. She said that also gibes with something Ruiz said back at the school. She’d said the archeological team had found the spear when they finally got a chance to get DOWN into the ruins.

So now we’re looking for a hole in the ground. Good thing we brought lights. Have to ask Frank if he got any flash bang grenades. Might be useful against a bat. Closest I’ve got is one of those stupid hand held air horns. They had them in just about every store we stopped in. I guess they use them at soccer games and stuff like that. Also got a bear whistle for everybody.

Uh, I just realized that some people this might help might not know what a bear whistle is. Um, it’s like your typical referee type whistle except made out of high impact plastic. I think the ones we picked up even have the little ball inside. They’re made to make a high pitched, really loud whistling noise that’s supposed to scare off bears. I don’t know if they’ll be loud enough to bug Camazippy or not. More later.

>>>We found the entrance. The jungle is trying to grow over and into it but there’s enough plants broken down at the entrance to see where the professors’ team has been going in and out. I guess you don’t really realize just how much light there actually is on a clear moonless night until you see something that is absolutely dark. And that’s what this hole is. It’s like the beams from our lights have clear cut edges and the dark doesn’t want to give up any more of its turf than it has to.

Shining the lights around showed us stuff carved into the walls. And what we saw there pretty much told us we’re in the right place. The carvings look like all the Aztec stuff in the books. Squatty, scary and pissed off looking. And the most common figure in the carvings are bats. I do NOT want to go down there. But I am going down there. WE are going down there. Evil needs to be defeated and, more importantly, our friend needs us to help her out of there. Time to really soldier up. More later.

Upon taking a closer look around the room, Frank realized there weren’t many signs of a struggle. The balcony had metal railings, and there were scratches in them, as if something large with clawed feet had perched there. There were similar scratches on the wood floor inside, and snags in the throw rug. The covers on the bed were thrown back like Terry had gotten up fast, but she’d taken nothing with her. Her clothes were draped over a chair with her shoes tucked underneath it, and her wallet, watch and key-card were still lying on the dresser. Frank grabbed the key and went back to his own room--through the door this time. There was no time to waste. He was going to call the others for help; but whether they came or not, he was going to find Terry.

Reg, Raimon and Leigh had finally fallen asleep around 4:30am. Dec. 28, after a couple hours of ‘adult entertainment.’ At 5, Reg’s phone rang. He wouldn’t have answered if he hadn’t known that Raimon would not stop poking him until the phone stopped ringing and disturbing his beauty sleep. Not that Raimon needed the help.... The tone of the male voice on the phone slapped Reg wide awake in an instant, and that brought Leigh up from the edge of sleep she’d been teetering on. There’d been a fire at Claire’s. The two girls had escaped, but Claire and Phil were in the hospital’s ICU in critical condition. They hadn’t found Reg’s brother-in-law yet. Reg hung up and made sure the other two were awake. He told them what had happened, and ordered Raimon to begin packing while he called and got them the first flight back that he could arrange. “So much for protecting my family,” Reg muttered. “Raimon, how do you feel about kids?” Leigh was out of the bed even before Raimon. She told Reg to get three tickets; she was going with him. Raimon hesitated. “I don’t do ‘kids’,” Raimon said. “And why do I have to go?” Reg was working on getting them on the 6am flight and couldn’t answer him, but Leigh suggested that he might need to watch the kids while she went to the hospital with Reg. Or he could go with Reg and she’d watch the kids. Either way....

Then, at 5:30am, Leigh’s phone rang. And Reg’s. Reg had just hung up after calling Audra and leaving a message on her voice mail, and he thought it might be her. Leigh had just been about to go pack her own things. But it was Frank. They could hear some of the others picking up, too. Aiden and Angie sounded groggy. And Justin and Karen sounded like they’d just been woken from a deep sleep. In fact, had they been awake enough to think straight, they probably wouldn’t have answered at all. It was only reflex, and the fact that they’d forgotten to turn the phones off last night, that made them answer now. The only person that hadn’t picked up was Tony. He did remember to turn off his phone. “It seems...” Frank started. “Now’s not the best time, Frank,” Reg interrupted. “...something has flown off with Terry,” Frank continued. “Anyone who wants to help should be over here in the next half-hour. I’ll meet you in the lobby.” They could all hear Karen moan “Noooo,” before she dropped her phone. Then there was faint sobbing in the background. Some of the others thought maybe she was just that concerned about Terry’s disappearance. It was actually that her fears were coming true; she’d been afraid that if all the others were there, her honeymoon was going to be ruined. And now it was. Justin went over and hugged Karen tight to his side as he held the phone to his ear with the other hand. He and the others heard Leigh apologize to Reg. “No, you’re needed here,” Reg told her as he was hanging up his phone. “Raimon, my Latin lover, you’re going with me,” he said, as Leigh was telling the others about the fire. “Ahhhhh!” They heard Raimon’s anguished wail in the background from Leigh’s phone.

All of them told Frank they’d be there as fast as they could, then hung up to get ready. Karen’s hands were covering her face as she sobbed, so Justin almost couldn’t make out what she said. “God hates us,” Karen sobbed. “We’ll never get a moment of peace to ourselves ever again.” Justin rubbed her back. “He doesn’t hate us,” he said. It wasn’t His fault they’d been dragged into this Fight, he told her; they would just have to make the best of whatever time they did have. Justin felt her head nod against his chest. She sniffled and rubbed her eyes. Tears were still spilling out, but she began getting dressed. While Raimon reluctantly filled their suitcases and Leigh pulled on the dress she’d worn clubbing the night before, Reg called the desk and got checked out. Leigh had the two men drop her off at her hotel on their way to the airport. The Ferrari wasn’t very comfortable for three people and luggage, but it wasn’t far to the other hotel. As Leigh ran down the hallway, she paused at Frank’s room. She told him that she would call Tony and get him there if she could. Frank was packing not only his own things, but stuff for Terry as well. He wasn’t about to consider any other possibilities right now except that they would find her alive and able to use the things he was packing.

Leigh knew that Tony was staying at the same hotel as Reg had been, so she dialed the front desk. She asked to be connected with Tony’s room, and the clerk told her that Mr. Leonetti had requested that his calls be held. He could certainly take a message for her and see that Mr. Leonetti got it though. Leigh sighed. Tony would never get a message in time. She thanked the clerk and said she’d just come over to see him. The clerk replied that Mr. Leonetti would no doubt welcome that. There was the hint of a smirk evident in his tone. Leigh wasn’t sure where Tony had gone after they’d gotten to the club, but he must have ended up at his room with a woman. Tony had only just fallen asleep about the time his cell would have been ringing with Frank’s call if he’d left it on. All four of the college girls had joined him in his room, and the five were now sprawled across his king-sized bed so that you couldn’t tell whose limbs were whose without untangling them. Leigh called the desk to have a cab ordered, then dressed hurriedly in sturdy pants and boots, and a t-shirt with a long-sleeved shirt over it. As she passed Frank’s room, she paused again to let him know that she couldn’t get through to Tony on the phone, so she was going over to get him. She raced back downstairs, and as she jumped in the cab, she warned the cabby that there was a big tip in it if he did exactly what she asked. He sped over to the luxury hotel well over the speed limit. She told him to wait as she jumped out of the cab, and he casually opened the morning paper as if this were a common event. Leigh went to the front desk. She pulled 5 twenties out of the small wallet she was carrying and asked the clerk for Tony’s room number. Luckily for Leigh, Tony had only given him $50 to hold his calls.

Leigh tapped her foot impatiently as the elevator crept upwards. She was out the doors before they were even fully open, and she raced down the empty hallway. She knocked on Tony’s door, and heard giggling from somewhere on the other side. She was about to knock again when the door was opened by a young woman wearing only one of Tony’s t-shirts. “I need to see Tony,” Leigh said. “Tony’s kind of...well...he’s not dead,” the girl told her with a grin, stepping back from the doorway. There was a ‘puppy pile’ on the bed, and Leigh sighed wistfully, thinking of the bed she’d been forced from less than an hour ago. She leaned over and shook what she thought might be Tony’s shoulder, and his eyes opened slowly. He got a shit-eating grin on his face and told the other girls to make room. Instead, they began to disentangle themselves from him and each other and pick through the clothes that were strewn around the floor. Leigh squatted next to the bed, so she could talk a little more privately with Tony. “It looks like Terry got disappeared,” Leigh told him. He didn’t seem to understand what she said. He asked Leigh how she was doing. “I was having fun until about 15 minutes ago,” Leigh told him. It wasn’t entirely true, since Reg had gotten the call from San Francisco about 45 minutes ago; but it was the first thing she could think to say. “Damn, I don’ remember nothin’,” Tony said disappointedly. “But come on back in bed and I’ll try to remember dis time.” Tony wrapped one arm around her waist. All she could do for a second was stare at him. Where on earth did he get the idea that she...? She stood, slipping his hand from around her waist, and went over to the small coffee maker near the bathroom, and started a pot of coffee, effectively hiding the grin that began to spread across her face. Apparently Tony was going to need a little something to get his brain started this morning, and they didn’t have time for a full breakfast.

The other girls were starting to filter out of the room by now. As each one got finished dressing, she would go over and give Tony a hug and kiss. He was gentleman enough to ask if they needed cab fare, and they declined, saying they were fine. They also said goodbye cheerfully to Leigh as they left, not at all upset with her presence. When the last had left and the smell of the brewing coffee began sparking his brain into action, Tony crawled out of bed and stood there a second in all his ‘buffness,’ scratching his head. He still didn’t remember Leigh coming back to the room with him last night, and was mumbling something about that as he strolled past Leigh and into the bathroom. As he passed, Leigh reminded him that Frank was in a hurry. He shut the door and she heard the shower turn on. After about 15 minutes of listening to Tony sing in Italian (opera, she thought, but she wasn’t sure which one), he came out still toweling himself off and started picking through his clothes. A few minutes later he looked like Don Johnson in Miami Vice, with an open shirt under a light-weight jacket, loose-fitting cotton slacks, sandals, and five-o’clock shadow. He poured the coffee Leigh had thoughtfully made into one of the styrofoam cups next to the coffee maker, then went to the desk. He wrote a quick note, and pulled a couple bills out of his wallet and slipped them half-under the note. Leigh noticed as she followed Tony out the door that it was an apology and tip for the housecleaning crew. The cab was still waiting when they got downstairs, and when he’d dropped them back at Frank’s hotel, Leigh gave the cabby the large tip she’d promised.

By a few minutes after 6am, the last of the team was joining Frank in the hotel lobby. Aiden and Angie had gotten there in about 10 minutes, shortly after Leigh left to get Tony, and Angie had even stopped and gotten Frank a large black coffee on the way. Leigh and Tony got back at just about the same time that Karen and Justin hustled in, having had to come up from the docks. On their way off the ship, Justin made sure to let the Assistant Purser know that they’d run into some friends the night before and might be spending some time in Cancun with them. The woman quickly printed them off a copy of the ship’s time-table, so that the couple could rejoin the cruise at their convenience, if they remained in Cancun after the ship left for the next port-of-call. Karen stayed back by the doorway and concentrated on her bag, so no one could see her red-rimmed eyes. Nobody but Justin, who was keeping a concerned eye on her, saw her flinch when the woman mentioned them rejoining the cruise. It served her right, she thought to herself, for skipping Mass on one of the holiest days of the Church calendar. She wasn’t about to start making deals with God, so she didn’t promise anything in return; but she offered up a silent prayer that the team would find Terry alive and rescue her safely, and she and Justin would be able to finish their honeymoon. She fingered the crucifix that she never took off, and wondered how Fr. Andrew had expected her to not let this kind of thing keep her from living her life. Easy for him to say that she shouldn’t put off having a family. He wasn’t planning on having one anyway. But how could she possibly plan to have a family when the Unknown wouldn’t even leave them alone long enough for her to have a happy honeymoon.

She swallowed back more tears as Justin put his arm around her shoulders and led her off the ship. By the time they walked into the hotel lobby, the only sign left of her distress was the puffiness around her eyes. There was no time for whining or distraction right now. The sooner they rescued Terry, the better chance she had of finishing her honeymoon in peace. As they came up to the small huddle of people, the only ones in the lobby at that hour, Justin asked if the group needed transportation. “Not until we know where we’re going,” Frank answered. Except for Tony, everyone was dressed for spending the day hacking their way through the inland jungles. Frank motioned toward the elevators, and the group headed upstairs to Terry’s room. Along the way, Justin called Fr. Colin. He might not be an Envoy, but he understood the kinds of things SAVE dealt with, and while he might not be able to come down to help, he might at least put them in touch with someone in the area who could help them. The call went straight to voice mail. Fr. Colin’s heavy Irish brogue announced that he couldn’t answer the phone just then but he’d be “checkin’ me mail sometime t’day and get back t’ you.” Justin left a message that told him “the honeymoon’s a bust, a friend’s gone missing, can you put us in touch with a ‘mutual friend’ who might help?”

When they got to Terry’s room, the team clustered just inside the door as Frank told them about his dream, and pointed out the things he’d already noticed--the scratches on the balcony railing and the floor, and the fact that Terry’d taken nothing with her, so she probably hadn’t left willingly in spite of the lack of signs of a struggle. Justin studied the scratch-marks. The claw that made them looked about the size of a dinner plate, he told the others. (He paused as he said it. It was strange how much of an effect marriage was having on him. A year ago, he would have compared the size to an engine or car part, or maybe even something from his Army training. Now, he was using dinner plates as a frame of reference....) Frank looked more closely at them, and pulled out his pocket-knife. He poked at the wood floor with the tip. Whatever had made the marks must have been between 200 and 300 pounds he told them. The scratches weren’t dug-in like the thing was trying to rip into the floor. It looked like they were just a side effect of the thing getting a footing on the floor. But they were still pretty deep, so the creature must have been pretty heavy. On the other hand, the railing was scratched but not deformed in any way. So the thing wasn’t heavy enough to bend it under its weight, and it had enough strength to perch on the railing and carry away Terry, who wasn’t very big, but either not enough strength to crush the railing or enough sense to not squeeze that hard.

The strange thing that both Frank and Justin noticed was the pattern. As far as Justin could tell, the creature’s stance was 4-legged, but wider in the front than the back. “Like a giant bat?” Karen asked warily. Justin and Frank both looked at her then back at the floor. Actually...yeah. She might not know a lot about tracks or animals, but she’d seen enough bats when she was out on digs. They had this odd way of using their wing-tips as feet when they walked. In fact, most paleontologists theorized that pterodactyls walked the same way, since the bone structure of the wing portion of fossils that had been found closely resembled bat wings. Using the spacing of the stance, Justin and Frank figured that the thing was about 7-8 feet tall. That would explain why he couldn’t hear the bat he’d seen a couple nights ago, Frank thought to himself. It must have been much farther away than he thought at the time. He told the others about what he’d seen. With all this talk about bats, the first thing Tony thought of was the creature he’d encountered at the warehouse when they fought the Zombi Master. He poked Aiden in the arm and motioned at the easy chair. He sat down, and a moment later his body slumped. A few minutes later he was back. He couldn’t find any residual from an incorporeal creature having been in this room or in Frank’s; and there didn’t seem to be any ghosts around, to ask if they’d seen the thing. He let the others know what he’d been thinking about.

Leigh and Karen had been thinking about what they knew of legends about bat or bat-like creatures. The first thing that came to their minds was the Camazotz, or “snatch bat” of Central American legends. It was a giant bat that attacked humans and animals. The myth might have grown out of finds of the fossils of D. dracula, the giant vampire bat, in Central and South America. In Mayan legends, Camazotz was an inhabitant of the Underworld that killed (temporarily, at least) one of the Hero Twins. Later legends told of Zapotec worshipers of Camazotz that could shapeshift into bats. Justin wondered if the thing was any relation to the Chupacabra. Karen and Leigh weren’t sure that there was any connection except for the fact that both drank blood. But Leigh pointed out that a similar connection could be made to Vampires. A ripple of fear passed through all of them. Karen vaguely recalled stories of bat-men from Native American mythology. They were more powerful than humans, and were a connection between men and gods without being gods themselves. But in the legends, they offered men helpful guidance, and there was no hint of death or blood-drinking involved in the stories that she could remember. In fact, there were myths associated with bats and bat-gods in almost every culture. There was Mali, an aboriginal bat god in Australia; and Ngunung Ngunnut, the Australian bat god that created sex; and Pe’ape’a, the eight-eyed Polynisian bat god that kidnapped the wife of the trickster god Maui, who waited until the god fell asleep then cut its head off to rescue his wife. Considering that the only three real blood-drinking bat species were all native to Central and South America, Karen could see how bat-gods could end up being more deadly here than in other mythologies, even though the real blood-drinking bats were not at all deadly. And there were a number of well-known hardwood trees native to the region, Leigh pointed out. Which, if there was a connection to Vampires, raised the possibility that staking the creature might be a way to kill it.

When everyone was done looking around Terry’s room, Frank took them back to his room. There he handed pistols to Justin, Tony, Angie and Leigh. That was all Frank had at the moment, but Aiden and Karen didn’t mind. Aiden wouldn’t have used a gun if he’d had one, and Karen still wasn’t sure she was ready to have to point one at a human being again, even if the person was under the control of the Unknown and trying to attack her. Frank told them that he’d checked, and banks wouldn’t be open until 10am. He didn’t know about the others, but he wanted cold, hard cash in his hands for some of the transactions he was planning that day, and the $400 per day limit at the ATMs wouldn’t be enough. Justin and Leigh recognized the usefulness of that, and decided that they’d be making a trip to the bank as well, as soon as it was open. In the meantime, the group discussed what they might need for their expedition to find Terry. Frank would be securing more firepower, at least a couple of assault rifles, and asked Tony to go with him on that errand. Tony agreed, but only if he could also visit some business acquaintances before or after. “Ya never know when youse might need t’ close up a tunnel or somethin’,” he suggested. And if he couldn’t get in touch with his contacts, he’d need to go shopping for the components to make what he needed. Leigh chose to go with them as back-up.

Aiden wanted to put together a med-kit, since he wouldn’t have been able to bring his along on the plane even if he’d known to plan ahead for it. Angie was going to go with him “to keep an eye on his butt.” “Don’t you mean back?” Justin suggested. “Yeah, that too,” she agreed. Karen would go along with Justin to get anything and everything they could think of from camping and sporting-goods stores. At the very least, Justin wanted to get spear-guns or bows, some of those ‘hand-suns’, machetes, packs.... They’d also pick up a Land Rover. They weren’t positive where they were going yet, but a Rover could go anywhere. And Karen was going to ask the historian on the cruise who they dealt with on the ground in Cancun to set up the tours. Maybe she could work out where the most likely place would be to find an altar like the one Frank saw in his dream. Before they left the hotel, Tony suggested that he, at least, was going to look for some ‘local-looking’ clothes, just in case he needed to blend in. The others agreed that it wasn’t a bad idea, and it made Frank think to ask if anyone knew Spanish. Justin had learned some, between high school classes and his time in the Army. And Angie said she was pretty fluent, having learned from ‘Carlos.’ Aiden was about to get jealous when his attention was drawn to Tony, who was gazing across the room at Leigh with a shit-eating but confused looked on his face. Some of the others noticed too, but there was no time left for friendly banter.

By the time they were all done planning, it was 10am. Next stop, the bank. Frank was hoping to get $10K in cash. Justin and Leigh wanted to get cash, too, and the bank manager wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t be able to accommodate them all. They all agreed to a mixture of US dollars, local currency and traveler’s checks, which allowed the manager to give each of them what they needed. Then they split up for their various errands, having decided to meet back at Frank’s room at 1pm. Everyone was able to find what they were looking for except Tony, who had to make due with the common, everyday components that would allow him to make what he needed. When the others asked how much time he’d need to mix his stuff up, he told them that it was kind of like a good epoxy--you didn’t want to mix it until right before you were going to use it. “Here...One’a youse wanna hold dis jar’a nitro while we bump along tru’ da jungle?” he joked.

Then Karen told them what she’d found out. She had been directed to a local tour company who made the arrangements for the ‘archaeological’ tours. They, in turn, told her that their “local experts” were a couple of professors from the Universidad de la Yucatan, Professor del Gado and Professor de la Ruiz, and gave her a number to call. A woman answered and introduced herself as Dr. de la Ruiz. Karen asked if she could speak with her about seeing some of the local archaeological sites that weren’t normally seen by tourists. She was an archaeologist herself, Karen explained, specializing in Native American archaeology. But most of her work had been done in the US, and she wanted to expand her knowledge about the natives of the rest of the Americas, whenever she had opportunities like this to do so. Professor de la Ruiz told Karen that normally Professor del Gado led groups out to his dig, but he was out ‘walking’ the dig that afternoon and wasn’t available. However she’d be more than happy to meet with Karen, perhaps after the siesta. The university was just setting up an exhibit of Mayan artifacts that had been discovered at del Gado’s new site, and she might like to see that, as well. The professor chatted with Karen about the costs of running the new dig and of setting up the exhibit. It was an expensive venture, and the university and government weren’t always forthcoming with funds, even when the site was relatively untouched and as exciting as their new one was. Perhaps if she had the time, the professor intimated, she herself could take Karen out there to see it, rather than waiting for del Gado to get back. Karen caught the unspoken hint that a donation to the department and museum might get her more help than the professor would otherwise have had the time for. They agreed to meet at 3pm.

The group spent the next couple hours sorting through the stuff they’d all bought and re-packing it to make it easily accessible. A little before 3pm, they all headed over to the university. Professor de la Ruiz was a fairly tall and very elegant looking woman with a touch of obvious Indian ancestry in her mostly Spanish background. She and Karen continued the conversation they’d started earlier on the phone, comparing their projects (her specialty was native folk lore, del Gado was the archaeologist), and discussing similarities and differences between the native populations here and in the US. Karen explained that when her friends found out that she was coming to see the professor, they asked if they could come along to see some real ruins instead of the touristy places tours normally went. Would she be willing to guide them out to Professor del Gado’s new dig site? They would, of course, happily donate a suitable honorarium to support the dig, Karen told her, in return for the time she would be spending away from her duties there. But they didn’t have much time to wait until tomorrow, Frank told her, since they wouldn’t be staying in Cancun long enough; would they be able to go that afternoon? He handed her an envelope with $500 US in it, the amount the group had decided on earlier when Karen had told them about the professor’s offer. The professor’s eye widened a little, but she covered her surprise well. She would have been satisfied with $100 and a nice dinner out. She told them to meet her at the school’s museum around 4pm. They would start with a look at the artifacts that were going into the exhibit, then head out to the dig. Oh, and they would need Jeeps, she warned them.

The team left to find another Land Rover and get their equipment loaded. Karen was surprised to see Leigh loading a large net, then realized how useful that would be to catch a large bat. Then they checked the local weather. Sunset would be at 5:15 that evening. They were 3 days from the new moon, so they’d already passed moonset, which had been at 2:53pm. And tomorrow morning’s sunrise would be at 6:30am. It was going to get dark faster, too, they realized, once they got into the jungle, so they made sure all the lights--chem-lites as well as Mag Lites and the ‘hand suns’--were on the tops of the piles. And they also tried to split the gear evenly between the two vehicles, in case anything happened to one or the other. Justin drove one Jeep, with Karen and Leigh, and Angie drove the other, with Aiden, Tony and Frank. They all wore ear-buds and throat mikes. They got to the museum a few minutes before 4pm, then waited. Frank was beginning to get restless long before Professor de la Ruiz finally arrived at 4:20. Karen and Leigh had to keep reminding him that they were on ‘native time’ there. Everything seemed to be done at a slower and more leisurely pace everywhere else in the world than it was in the States. Only Japan had anything similar to the frenetic lifestyle of Americans. And even they had their rituals and customs that seemed slow and time-wasteful to Americans.

Professor de la Ruiz led them into the museum and into what almost looked like a storage room or work room. There were a few glass cases, work benches, and crates with packing materials spilling out of some of them. The exhibit was still being set up, the professor explained. They’d only begun working the site a couple months before, but the finds were so exciting that they wanted to share them as quickly as possible. She proceeded to show them a number of items that only another person seriously interested in archaeology could appreciate. There were pot shards, and several obsidian knives which had been found in pieces and were being reconstructed. And then there was their pride and joy, which had only been discovered recently and was so well preserved that.... The woman was beaming as she held up a wooden spear, about 6 foot long. It was solid mahogany, sharpened to a wicked point and fire-hardened, then carved down its entire length and polished to a satin sheen. “I believe it was, perhaps...” she began, then hesitated. “Not a staff. Obviously a spear, and you can see where ornaments had been attached to it, which must have decayed or fallen off,” she continued, pointing to very fine wear-spots along the shaft.

The group studied the carving, all in the squat, blocky style of the Mayans. Several were clearly bat figures, and they all glanced at one another. The unspoken thought they all shared was that maybe the archaeologist had awakened something that should have been left alone. Justin and Leigh were both taking photos of the item, and Justin commented that it would look great over the mantle at home. De la Ruiz just ignored the comment, but that was more the response Justin had been hoping for. He wanted to know just how committed the woman was to her work. He’d heard plenty of stories of people doing this sort of work just so they could get artifacts to sell on the black market, or so they could find items that could be easily faked and sold as originals. But she and Karen were obviously deep in conversation in a language that was foreign to several of them--academic. “Would it be possible to have a local craftsman recreate something similar,” Justin asked her, in all seriousness this time, “if we showed him a photo of this?” Possible, the professor admitted, but not likely, since she didn’t know of any craftsmen with the level of skill necessary; and certainly no one would be able to do it before they had to leave town. However, she could certainly point him in the direction of the markets where he’d have the best chance of finding someone who might be commissioned to do the work if he wanted. Frank sensed nothing Unknown about the spear, but the bat motif was too much of a coincidence to ignore. As the team neared the door again, the professor took out her phone. A moment later, she closed it again with a disgusted look on her face. She’d been trying to call Ricardo...Professor del Gado...since she’d first spoken with Karen that afternoon, and he didn’t answer. Ah, but service could be spotty out there, so perhaps they would meet him on the way out. She asked if they’d thought to bring lights, and when told that they had, she led them out of the building.

But Frank lagged behind the others, and picked up the spear on his way out. Normally he wouldn’t condone a theft like that. But Terry’s life was at stake...no pun intended. It was almost 5pm, and light outside was already getting dim, more so than it had when they were on the beach at the same time last night. Frank was able to slip the spear into the Rover without anyone noticing, while Aiden busily squirted everyone else with DEET. Karen and Evelina were on a first-name basis by now. Evelina didn’t even blink when it became obvious that most of the others were carrying guns. There were jaguars in the jungle, not to mention drug smugglers, poachers and relic hunters. She herself carried a .38, she said lifting her jacket so they could see the pistol hanging at her hip. “Just aim for the balls,” Justin commented, his preference being to hurt the smugglers first, before killing them. “Yes, or the head,” Evelina replied. “Though my shooting instructor always stressed aiming for the center of mass. But then, Ricardo spends more time in the jungle than I do.”

Everyone climbed into the Rovers, and Justin took the lead, with Evelina beside him to give directions. When she wasn’t pointing out the next turn, though, she and Karen were still engaged in an animated conversation, with Leigh following along well enough to join in occasionally. They headed out in a northwesterly direction away from the city. The trip would take about an hour, Evelina had advised them. But they realized that most of that time would be due to slower travel through the jungle, when they turned off the last paved road about a half-hour out. Periodically, Evelina would interrupt the conversation to point out some item of interest, such as the pyramids that most tourists went to see, or the place where a road turning off went out to another Mayan ruin. The places the tourists were taken had gotten commercialized over the years, but the government was careful to have the archaeologists and historians guide all the reconstructions that had been done. The women shared a laugh over the Starbucks store at the center of the Forbidden City, in China. Mexico was also very careful to not allow the commercialization to get that out of hand. If he hadn’t loved his wife so much, and hadn’t wanted to get whatever time with her that he could, Justin might have wished he were in the other Rover. Karen and Leigh had turned their com-units off, but he’d left his turned on for the drive to relay info to the other vehicle; and he could hear the others discussing the relative merits of the additional guns Frank had bought compared to some of the things Tony and Angie would have wished for, which was much more interesting to him than the comparative culture discussion going on among the 3 women.

It was almost 6pm when Evelina told them to slow down. The conversations ended, and Leigh and Karen flipped on their com-units. It had been getting darker and darker as they went, not just because of the setting of the sun or the closing in of the jungle, but because the deeper they’d gone into the jungle the more bugs there were hitting the headlights; and some of the moths they hit were large enough to cause an appreciable drop in the amount of light the headlights cast. They had put the windows down, and the sounds of the insects flying and buzzing around them filled the air. When they looked up out the open windows, they could see hundreds of small, winged creatures flying above them--a bat column. “Don’t worry about them,” Evelina told them. “There’s a cave near here. But they’ll stay away from the lights and us.” She seemed completely unconcerned, but Frank wasn’t so sure and he studied them for a moment. Oh, yeah. There was definitely something of the Unknown about them he warned the others quietly. Justin slowed the Rover further, and Angie was almost riding on his bumper now. Evelina pointed out what she said were the remains of a wall and told them they were almost there. She hollered out the open window, to let Ricardo know it was her if he heard them coming. Karen was the only one who could make out the feature she’d been pointing at, though. “We should see him soon,” Evelina said, and a moment later the jungle seemed to open up a little bit, at least as far as Karen and Evelina were concerned. Karen had a sudden thought, and tried to sense if there was anything Unknown about Evelina. Her face flushed with heat, and Karen was sure that the woman she’d been chatting so casually with was the epitome of Evil. Her heartbeat sped up, but she managed to remain calm as Evelina had Justin stop the Rover and they all piled out of the vehicles. Knowing was half the battle. Now she just had to warn the others.

Karen saw Frank passing flashlights out of the back of one Rover, Tony standing nearby and fastening one to the shotgun Frank had handed him. She pulled Justin over there as Evelina turned on the ‘hand-sun’ she’d brought and began scanning the jungle and calling out for Ricardo. “I felt...something,” she whispered to the two men she wanted to tell first, without remembering that she was telling everyone at once anyway over the throat mike. “Something like what?” Justin asked. “Like Edward?” “No, worse,” she told them. “Are you sure?” Frank asked her. He still didn’t trust her judgement, maybe even more so now that he knew more about her from their therapy sessions. “I could be wrong,” she said hesitantly. “But...I don’t think so. Just...keep an eye on her.” Evelina was moving into the ruins, calling Ricardo’s name and scanning the area with the light. Justin asked her where it would be OK to set up their tents. “We are not staying,” she answered him. “But, isn’t Professor del Gado?” he asked. “No,” she said, her voice wavering. “He was due back this evening.” She turned back to the ruins and continued her search. Tony asked if anyone had charcoal. Leigh tossed him a black paint stick and he began marking camo’ stripes on his face. Karen didn’t want to know why Tony felt the need to camouflage himself or why Leigh happened to have the stuff to do it. If some giant bat was going to attack them, it was going to find them by echolocation not by sight.

Aiden had been checking over the med kit, which he’d thoughtfully filled with anti-venoms as well as all the usual stuff. Angie, Leigh and Justin had been keeping an eye on their surroundings and on the professor. And Frank was tying the beginning of a roll of twine to the bumper of one Rover, when Tony stumbled over something on the ground. He caught his balance, then knelt to uncover it. Karen half expected it to be a fallen tree, or a piece of stone that had once been part of the wall. They were all shocked when Tony told them he thought he’d found Professor del Gado. The figure, lying face down in the green of the jungle floor, was clad in khakis and had dark hair. Aiden rushed over to the body. He checked the side of its neck for a pulse and shook his head, then turned the body over just as Evelina got there. The throat was torn out and there was a look of abject horror on the face, but there was no doubt that it was Ricardo del Gado. Evelina screamed and began backing away. Karen saw a flash of fear rising on the faces of some of the others as well. There was no time for tracking down anyone who ran off into the jungle right now. She looked at Leigh, and indicated that she would use a Mental Shield to calm everyone down. Hers didn’t have the same range Leigh’s did, but everyone was still nearby right now and they might need that range later.

Angie, Leigh and Tony took over the ‘watch’ as Frank and Aiden began studying the body and Justin the area around it. Karen went over and tried to calm down Evelina. If she wasn’t evil, then she deserved to be comforted. If she was evil, then she still deserved the comfort, but Karen also didn’t want her calling her minions to attack them. They had enough to worry about right now. There wasn’t nearly as much blood as there should have been, but except for the missing gobbet of throat and the lack of blood, the body appeared intact, Aiden told them. “Did he die right here,” Justin asked, “or somewhere else and that’s why there’s not enough blood here?” Aiden couldn’t be sure. Justin began looking for tracks, and it didn’t take long to find more of the giant bat tracks in the dirt under disturbed vegetation. It looked like the thing had landed, took a couple steps, attacked the professor where he was standing, then took off. Frank and Aiden concluded that the creature had clamped its jaws around the man’s neck, drank the blood as it gushed out, then ripped out the throat in order to release the man before taking off. Tony suggested looking for a camera or other recording device, and Aiden searched the man’s pockets as Frank raised the man’s eyelids. He shined his flashlight at them and was surprised to see that he’d had severe cataracts. The professor would have been practically blind except for seeing what would amount to shadows. Aiden slipped Frank the camera he found in the man’s pocket.

Evelina was calming down now, and Karen studied her back as she went to the body and dropped to her knees. She was sobbing, and between sobs she was ranting a mile-a-minute in Spanish. She smacked the man’s leg loudly, and the others realized that it was the same spot where she carried her holster but where he carried none. She was cursing him for going out alone without a gun where jaguars could get him, Angie told them over the com-unit. Karen wondered if their relationship had been more than just professional. She seemed so distraught, and though she didn’t catch all the words, the tone of the professor’s voice carried more grief than what Karen would have felt had she found one of her colleagues dead. Or maybe it was all an act. If she was as evil as Karen had sensed, maybe she’d done this herself or knew what had, and was trying to hide the fact. The woman had finally collapsed on the dead man’s chest, sobbing, her apparent anger at his death having worn her out. Frank asked her if Professor del Gado had trouble with his eyesight. “No,” she told him between sobs. “But he was talking about getting glasses for close work.” Justin asked if there had been others here with him, and if not, where his Jeep had gone. “He went out alone,” Evelina told him, slapping the dead man’s chest again in anger and grief. It didn’t take Justin much work before he found where the man’s Jeep had been parked.

“We must take him back,” Evelina said, finally pushing herself up from the ground. The Envoys looked at one another. Evelina was in no condition to drive back alone, especially with the dead body of her colleague in the back of the Jeep. That would mean splitting up the team, and they weren’t even sure what they’d be facing yet. But the look on Frank’s face told them that HE was not leaving there without Terry. Aiden and Frank got the body wrapped, and Angie helped Frank get it into del Gado’s Jeep while Aiden ‘played doctor-guy’ for Evelina, making her sip some water and calming her down. “Maybe you should take her back to town,” Frank suggested to Aiden. Aiden nodded, “Sure,” and Angie almost reluctantly offered to go with them. The others could tell that she was torn between staying to help Frank (and the probable action that would involve), and keeping Aiden safe. Angie went to help Evelina into the Jeep. “Leave the kit, though,” Justin requested as Aiden went to pick it up. Aiden looked up and hesitated. He’d feel almost naked without it. But, then, Frank certainly knew how to use it. “Sure,” he finally said. “But don’t do anything that requires my ‘special skills’.” “You either,” Justin told him as he climbed into the back seat of the Jeep. “And, Angie, remind him that he isn’t licensed to practice down here. That means he doesn’t have to stay and do all the paperwork....” Justin caught Angie’s eye and made sure she understood what he was really saying: “Get him out of there before anyone, especially the authorities, starts asking too many questions.” “And I can stop him from ‘being a doctor’?” Angie replied with a smirk. She hopped into the driver’s seat of the Jeep, and the other five watched them roll back into the jungle.

Frank turned on the digital camera Aiden had handed him and pulled up the first picture. Jungle. The next--more jungle. Karen took a look and was able to point out details of the ruins. They were all photos of the ruins, and there were a lot of them. But there was nothing that looked even remotely like what Frank had seen in his dream. They began scanning the area with the lights, and Karen was able to get a feel for the layout of the site by comparing what she saw to the pictures. The area inside the ‘walls’ was depressed, which indicated that there was probably more below that they couldn’t see. Maybe that was where the altar was. There was already a great deal of regrowth of the vegetation in the past week or so, since the spear had been found and they’d stopped the dig to start planning the exhibit. Justin suddenly realized that he’d been looking at the place all wrong. He’d gone out there expecting to see a ruined pyramid similar to the one in the brochure for the excursion, except covered in jungle. But either this place had been much smaller (“it was that,” Karen told him) or it was all upside down and buried in the ground. That must have been what the professor meant by finding the spear when they’d “finally gotten down into the ruins.”

Now that they all understood better what they were looking at, it didn’t take them long, even working in the dark, to find the opening they were looking for. Frank shined his light down into it. The walls and stairs leading down were made of well-crafted stone-work. They still looked heavily overgrown to the others, but Karen pointed out where the jungle had been cleared back from the hole and how the vines had already begun creeping back over the edges of the wall, as if drawn down into the darkness. The light of the hand-sun barely penetrated the darkness below them, and they couldn’t make out where the stairs ended. Backing the beam of light up onto the walls bracketing the opening, they could see Mayan carvings in the stone. The most prominent--figures of bats.

This isn’t the sanest thing I have ever done. The price was right for a cruise and stay in Cancun given the recent hurricanes. If there is a chance for anything to develop between Terry and myself, I think we just need some time away from the supernatural and the oddities of our team.

Damn. Leigh’s apartment apparently has a supernatural visitor. Justin and Karen have family plans, Aden and Angie are planning on going on vacation, Tony is notoriously unreliable unless it involves blowing stuff up or trying to get lucky, and Reg is off visiting family. Leaving Leigh here by herself just doesn’t seem right. And, well, what is the point of money if you don’t spend it. Besides, separate rooms and all, I am sure Leigh will want to spend some time on her own. The unknown probably won’t bother with only three of us…

Unbelievable. Edward and Karen’s mother bought them a cruise to Cancun. The same time we are going to be down here. The case for putting a bullet in Edward just keeps getting better and better. Five of us, in some town we’ve never been to. Why do I have a bad feeling that the Unknown is plotting against me yet again.

It is official. We met Aiden and Angie at the airport. They are going to Cancun too. It is just too much coincidence that all of us are going to the same place. Something is going to go wrong. If I suggest we look into just investing in a bunker now, they will just think I am paranoid, and I do too much as it is to make them wonder about me. Never mind the fact that I think I am the most sane in the group, they just have not yet realized how truly diabolical the Enemy is. Maybe if we stay spread out enough, what ever happens will only be little.

I really just should have known better than to try to get over my past. It always provokes the unknown into using the past against you, so you don’t get over it.

Both Reg and Tony “coincidentally” made their own plans to come down here. It is official; the Unknown is up to something. I wonder how many of these folks are actively being influenced by creatures. There is just no logical way to explain this much flukishness without some malevolence being behind it.

Maybe if Terry and I keep enough distance from the rest of the group, we won’t be the primary targets. Angie and Aiden decided to go and enjoy the luxury hotel that Reg and his latest boy toy are staying in. Angie seems to have taken things personally when I pointed out that she and Aiden were staying in a roach motel and might want to upgrade. It could have something to do with my method, but after she tried playing matchmaker between Terry and myself and wound up dragging Terry into SAVE, I think she needs to accept that it was one of the tamer things I could have done. In any case, I seem to be having some success at creating a bigger target for whatever is pushing us together than the hotel Terry and I are staying at.

I do wonder what Reg is running from that he seems to have a need to have sexual partners at every turn. There is a lot of pent up guilt there. But I am playing Doctor Phil to too many party members as it is. Maybe Leigh will decide to go explore the wild side with Reg and his playtoy and our hotel will become less of a target. It might do Leigh some good in finding out what she is doing for herself as opposed to what she is willing to do to make someone else happy. From our sessions, she doesn’t seem to be seeing Reg as a replacement for her husband, although I am not sure she is being entirely honest about that. We’ll see what happens.

I am an idiot. Maybe it is me whom is being influenced by the Unknown. More likely I am just the target of a creature that likes suffering. Terry was taken from her room. Damn it if I am not just being manipulated by my attempting to form an attachment. Rescuing a damsel in distress from some lousy fucking Aztec temple, this is so damn cliché it isn’t even funny. And I walked right into the setup. I really do need to find someone who doesn’t need to be rescued from Creatures every six months. Who am I kidding? I need to stop dragging people into situations where I know something is going to come after us.
It really is true. The Unknown doesn’t give us time to enjoy ourselves. Taking a vacation is just like putting on a big “kick me” sign. There really is just the war with the Unknown. Once you have started, it is your life. Forming attachments is just giving the enemy ammunition. That is why you always have to be willing to kill the folks on your team. It forces you to keep some barriers up. Some people will always be easy targets for Creatures. Lt. Worth was struggling just to fight off Edward’s influence. I should have realized that she did not have the willpower to be in the fight long term. Especially not with what seems to keep coming after me.

Shit. It is time to go get the others, so we can go rescue another person who just isn’t meant to survive in the world aware of creatures on their own. I am going to have to see if we can find someone to help look after Lt. Worth and make sure she doesn’t walk into any more traps.

I really do get tired of having to rescue people all the time. I also really wish I knew what the hell this thing was, so at least I would have some better idea as to how we kill it. Because that is what I really want to do now, go and kill some big mean nasty Elder beasty. I just love vacations.

Aiden and Angie were out on the beach bright and early Monday morning, Dec. 26. Justin and Karen’s cruise ship wasn’t due into Cancun until tomorrow morning, according to the itinerary they showed everyone last night; and Aiden was determined to spend at least one day just lying on the beach before all of Angie and Frank’s plotting and evilness began. Leigh came out to the beach a little later, carrying a bag of supplies for the day, which included a cover-up, books, and SPF 5000 sun-screen. She laid out her towel a short way down from Aiden and Angie and stripped out of her bathing suit. Aiden was quite happy to be a gentleman and apply the sunscreen for her. Frank and Terry had no interest in hanging out on the beach. First of all because the whole ‘clothing optional’ thing wasn’t either of their styles; and secondly because neither appreciated finding sand in places that the human body just wasn’t supposed to have sand. So they started their day with a light breakfast, followed by some jet-skiing in the bay. They met back at the hotel’s waterfront deck to relax after changing out of their swimwear. Frank was wearing an A-shirt with a Hawaiian shirt over it, khaki shorts, sandals, and a white fedora. Terry was wearing shorts, a tank top covered by a filmy cover-up top, sandals, and a straw hat.

Things were quiet all morning, aside from the buzzing of jet-skis and powerboats, and the occasional grunt from either Angie or Leigh, to request that Aiden add another layer of sunscreen. After jet-skiing, Frank and Terry spent the morning and early afternoon playing ‘detective games,’ first on the deck and later in the bar. They would see which of them could first spot the pick-pocket in action, then take turns picking out who his next victims would be. Or they would take turns pointing to a person whom the other one would then have to ‘tell a story’ about. For some people, the stories would have been humorous and completely made-up. But for the two seasoned investigators, the stories were more often than not so close to the truth that, had the person heard them, he or she would have thought the two were psychic. They had a lot of people to choose from for their game. Both the beach and the bar, while not crowded, contained people of every size, shape, age and gender. All the people on the beach were completely comfortable with its clothing-optional status, though not everyone had chosen to strip; and the people in the bar seemed unconcerned with the fact that other people might be watching them. None of the five Envoys had any idea that they were soon going to be joined by a couple unexpected arrivals.

Tony’s flight had arrived in Cancun at 4am, and he was beat. But since the trip was his ‘bonus’ from CDI “for doing a great job this past year,” he wasn’t going to complain about the flight. The company had also arranged a generous per diem, and had booked him a room in the nicest hotel on the beach. He was good to go for a week of fun in the sun. Reg and Raimon’s flight arrived at 6am. Reg couldn’t stand another moment with his sister or her milk-toast husband, even though his dad had come along to intercede when necessary. When he’d walked out of Claire’s house Christmas evening, he hadn’t even bothered to make it clear that he really wasn’t coming back. Of course, his dad would probably kill him, next time he got hold of Reggie. But a little relaxation with Raimon was just what Reg needed. Luckily, Raimon happened to NOT have any other plans for the holidays. (Or at least, he’d chosen to not tell Reg about them if he’d had any plans, and either cancelled them or just skipped out on them.) Generally, Raimon was in high demand. He was smoldering hot, and happy to accommodate anyone who was willing to give him the “attention” he needed. Reg harbored no illusion that Raimon’s relationship with him was exclusive, any more than his with Raimon was.

Early that afternoon, the three new arrivals woke from their naps ready for a little time out on the beach. Aiden, Angie and Leigh had had light lunches brought out to them, and only had to lie back down when they were done eating. Frank and Terry had chosen to eat under an umbrella on the deck. Reg was lying on the bed enjoying the peace and quiet of their suite when Raimon bounded in from the balcony like a man who’d had 5 cups on espresso in the past couple hours. Raimon bounced onto the bed and shook Reg. “Come! You must see the view! It is beautiful!” Raimon said in that heavy Spanish accent that Reg found almost as attractive as Raimon’s body. He tried to explain to Raimon that he’d seen the view from this hotel plenty of times before, but Raimon was not about to let him lie there. He got up and let Raimon ‘drag’ him to the balcony. “There! You see?” Raimon asked, pointing at two figures lying prone on the beach several stories below. Wait, was that...? Reg leaned forward, then started chuckling. He knew that butt! Or more precisely, he knew that tattoo. That could only be Angie, and it must have been Aiden lying beside her. Raimon looked at him questioningly, and Reg explained that the couple were friends of his. “You DO know everybody,” Raimon said. “So, hurry and introduce me.” Reg suggested Raimon give Angie a wide berth, and Aiden even more; because if Raimon made a pass at Aiden, Angie would be able to twist Reg into more of a pretzel than Raimon could--and it wouldn’t be nearly as pleasant an experience. Reg dialed room service and ordered a pair of drinks, to be delivered to the couple on the beach whom he described to the voice on the phone. Then he began lacing up the two strips of cloth that Raimon insisted was his bathing suit. In an instant, Raimon had on his ‘banana hammock,’ and danced around the room like a child waiting for permission to open his presents on Christmas morning.

Meanwhile, Tony had gone down to the beach himself, carrying his bag of ‘supplies’--a towel and a full box of condoms--and wearing a thick white terry-cloth robe. His camera phone was out, and he seemed to be scanning the beach for some attractive ‘scenes’ to take pictures of. He couldn’t help but notice the very pretty looking (at least from the back) brunette lying face down nearby. But she had a buff guy lying face down right next to her, so Tony wasn’t going to bother doing anything more than appreciate the view. He heard someone laugh as he was strutting along the beach looking for a good spot to stake out, and he assumed the woman (it was definitely not a guy’s laugh) was laughing at something happening further down the beach. He had no idea that it was Leigh, and that she had recognized him. He finally settled on a spot and shook out his towel and laid it down. As he was shrugging off his robe, the pretty brunette mumbled something to the man next to her. He remained motionless, snoring quietly. Angie tried again, “Sunscreen.” Still no reaction from Aiden. Finally she poked him in the side with the bottle. He sat up at precisely the same moment that Tony, wearing a Speedo, turned to stuff his neatly folded robe into the bag. “Aww, just when I thought I could go on vacation,” Tony said, louder than he realized. “Man, they’ll let anyone on this beach,” Angie said, sitting up when she heard Tony’s voice. “So, why Cancun?” she asked him. “The booze is cold and the women are easy,” Tony replied. “Are you easy?” Aiden asked Angie as he smeared more sunscreen on her back. “I’ll show you,” Angie replied, rolling over and grabbing Aiden. “NOT HERE!” Aiden said in a panicked voice. Angie just laughed. She loved pushing his buttons.

“It gets better,” Aiden said when he was sure his voice would come out normal again. “Frank, Terry and Leigh are here, too,” he said pointing out Leigh, who was coming up the beach toward them carrying her towel and bag, the cover-up draped over her shoulders. He explained that he and Angie had decided about a month ago to come for a short vacation while they both had the time off, and that Justin and Karen were on a honeymoon cruise that was due into Cancun’s port in the morning. Leigh told Tony about how Frank had surprised her and Terry with the plane tickets just last night. Then Aiden warned him that Frank and Angie were planning to prank Justin and Karen, too. Just then, Reg and Raimon walked up. Neither of them had any more clothing on than Aiden, Angie, Leigh or Tony. As the others stared at what little there was of Reg’s bathing suit, Reg began to introduce Raimon Alazar to his friends. Reg noticed the others staring, and when Leigh asked about his ‘suit’ with only the raise of one eyebrow, Reg said that it was staying on...because it took too long to unlace it. Raimon lifted Leigh’s hand as she was introduced to him. “Ah! Audra told me all about your Nordic goddess,” he said to Reg, continuing to smile suggestively at Leigh. “Wait, Raimon,” Reg started. “Audra...? Oh. Never mind.” Reg realized that with Audra being a reporter who traveled as much as he did, it should have come as no surprise that she’d managed to find at least one of his other ‘paramours.’ “Um, has she said anything about my dad?” Reg asked, a little worried. “No,” Raimon replied. “Is he not still in San Francisco?” Reg let the conversation drop as he continued introducing the others, though Raimon would have had to be completely oblivious to have missed the implications of Reg mentioning Audra and his dad in the same sentence.

As Reg introduced Raimon to Angie, Raimon kissed and stroked Angie’s hand as he had Leigh’s. But when Reg introduced Aiden, the look Raimon gave him could have melted steel. The red started at the tips of Aiden’s ears, and before Raimon’s gaze had gotten to Aiden’s feet, so had the red. Aiden either sun-burned in an instant or he was blushing ALL over. Angie put a proprietary arm around Aiden’s waist and suggested a swim. Nobody else was allowed to push that particular button, and she really didn’t want to have to hurt Reg’s friend. When Reg introduced Tony, Raimon looked him up and down and said, “Mmmm, I love Italian.” Tony didn’t say anything, but Reg whispered in Raimon’s ear that Tony was most definitely heterosexual. Ah, well. But Raimon could still dream, could he not? Leigh told Reg that she was there with Frank and Terry, and again, Raimon gave her and Reg suggestive looks. Reg couldn’t speak for Leigh regarding her proclivities for such things, but he was quite sure that the three weren’t together there in a ‘sexual’ sense. However he warned Raimon to give Frank and Terry a little space, because they were ‘just starting out’ and ‘still fragile.’ Plus, there was the same danger of...well, the same “danger” with Terry as with Angie. Reg signaled for a couple more chairs and towels to be brought out as Tony and Leigh spread their towels near Aiden and Angie’s, too; and Reg made sure to position himself between Raimon and the others.

When Aiden and Angie came back, the six chatted about how they’d all ended up in Cancun. Reg expressed his concern for how his two nieces, Topaz and Amethyst, were going to turn out with a couple of nutballs for parents. Frank and Terry had left the hotel deck to go for a leisurely swim in the hotel’s pool. When they met back on the deck to go out on the jet-skis again, they noticed that Leigh had moved near Aiden and Angie and that a crowd had sort of grown there. It didn’t take long to realize that two of the others were Tony and Reg. Frank and Terry started with a little bumper-tag on the jet-skis. A couple of teenagers seemed to think that the two were ‘too old’ to be out on the skis, and let them know it by generally making asses of themselves. Frank proceeded to goad them into a race, which he and Terry won by using ‘age and treachery.’ When the others finally noticed the two zipping back and forth, they were amazed at the fact that Frank’s white fedora never left his head. Terry’s hat they could understand; she had it tied down with a scarf. But Frank’s didn’t appear to be held on by anything other than his will that it stay put. The conversation among the six turned to where each of them was staying, and Angie once again expressed her disgust with Aiden’s choice of hotel, considering they were both rich. When Reg found out that they were staying in the rat trap at the far end of the beach, he called the concierge and asked if there were still any nice rooms left, perhaps one near his. There were, the concierge told him, including the one with the door adjoining his suite. Reg asked the couple if they would be interested in moving to the luxury hotel that he and Raimon, and Tony, it turned out as well, were in. The look on Angie’s face told Aiden and the others that he had no real say in the matter, but Aiden agreed anyway that, given the size of the roaches he’d seen, moving might not be a bad idea. Reg was soon back on the phone with the concierge getting Aiden and Angie a room next to his, but without the adjoining door. No point in tempting Raimon too much.

When they were done showing up the two kids, Frank and Terry joined the others, and Reg introduced them to Raimon. Frank looked at Angie and asked if she thought that Justin and Karen had been on the ship long enough. Terry protested that she would have no part in the pranking, as Aiden explained to Reg and Raimon what was going on. But she did want to hear what happened, she told Frank, and he and the others could tell that she would probably end up participating anyway. Frank pulled out his cell. Little did any of them know that Justin and Karen weren’t the only victims of Frank’s sense of ‘humor.’ When he’d found out the night before that Aiden and Angie were staying in the cheapest hotel on the beach, he wasn’t surprised at their choice based only on the cost aspect. He was shocked that Angie would stay in a place that no doubt had little concern for the security of their guests, especially after she’d been in Iraq. He had wanted to make the risk as apparent to her as it was to him, and he figured he might as well get a laugh out of it while he was at it. So after Aiden and Angie had gone out to the beach that morning, he had suggested that Terry go enjoy a massage while he took care of some business. She suspected that his ‘business’ involved more torment of Justin and Karen, so she made the appointment rather than feel guilty knowing what he was doing. Frank went over to Aiden and Angie’s hotel, and a few dollars got him the key to their room with no questions asked. He ran a trip-wire from the outside knob, around the door and into the room, leaving it visible but not too obvious. When he shut and re-locked the door, he attached the other end of the wire to a motion sensor, which he set up to trigger a strobe light cross the room. Before climbing out the window and rapelling down from their third floor room, Frank left a little note by the light that said, “BOOM! You’re dead.”

Justin and Karen had just finished having a late lunch, and when they got back to their room--the Presidential Suite (Edward had insisted that they have only the best)--they found a note on the floor which had obviously been slipped under the door. This was the first time the two had been out of their rooms since boarding, and it seemed strange that the note had come during the short time they were gone. All it said was “Check the flowers.” There was no signature, and they didn’t recognize the handwriting. There were several flower arrangements around the two rooms, which they now viewed with trepidation. They hadn’t given them much thought before, assuming that they either came with the room or had been sent by Edward and Cathy. They checked one and found a note from Edward and Cathy wishing them a “Happy Honeymoon.” In the next, they found a nice handheld digital camera--pointed directly at the bed. The note said “Merry Christmas,” but it wasn’t signed. Karen turned beet red, then paled white as a ghost and backed toward the door. Justin began to wonder if it really was a camera. When he was sure Karen wasn’t going to pass out, he dug around and found the tiny screwdriver in the glasses-repair kit that Karen carried, and opened the case. The camera had been ‘off’ when they found it, and he discovered that, as far as he could tell, it really was a camera. Justin readily blamed Edward for the intrusion, and began swearing in a quiet and controlled voice about what he was going to do to the freak when he got his hands on him, as he put the camera back together.

But Karen wasn’t so sure. Edward might creep her out, but not at all in that way. She’d never gotten any sort of vibe from him that he was interested in her in any way other than as Cathy’s oldest daughter. And she already knew from what her mother had said that the two had an active sex life together. Why would he want to spy on them? She tried to gather her wits and started looking through the other arrangements. One of the remaining two was indeed from the cruise company, congratulating them on their wedding. The last had no card, but there was a tiny two-way transmitter/receiver buried among the flowers. When Justin looked closely at it through the magnifying glass from the kit, he found that the serial number had been carefully filed off. This really scared Karen. There were so many things this could be used for. What if Edward had sent it? He certainly had the connections to have these things planted in their room. Instead of listening to them, was he going to use this to brainwash them when they were sleeping? What if the rest of the suite had been ‘bugged’ like that? Justin, on the other hand, was now beginning to doubt that it was Edward. The man might have connections, but would he really bother to bug their rooms? Karen was right, earlier. It didn’t seem like his style to do anything so impersonal. Who else did they know that might have access to this kind of ‘tech?’ The first name that came to mind was Frank’s. That asshole. Justin knew it was him.

But Karen couldn’t relax now. She couldn’t sit still, and as she moved around the suite she kept wondering where else a bug or camera could have been hidden. Justin could tell that she was getting close to panic again, so he checked the entire suite twice, everywhere either of them could think of or even imagine that a camera or mike could be hidden. But it still wasn’t enough for Karen. She was almost hysterical, and she pleaded with Justin to get them another room. He called the Guest Relations Manager, and one of the Guest Relations Officers came to their room within minutes. They had other rooms, certainly. But none as nice as this. It didn’t matter Karen told the man, trying hard to control her rising panic. As long as it wasn’t this one. What was the nicest they had available, Justin asked. The man described it, and Justin told him they’d take it. The man offered to have someone come to move their things, and Karen refused. She would move everything herself. Then he asked, almost as an afterthought though Karen knew that it wasn’t, if they could tell him why they needed to switch rooms. “Because we found THESE in two of the flower arrangements,” Karen told him, placing the camera and mike on the table. The man was horrified and began to apologize profusely. They would be moved immediately, and when he found out which crew member had done this, he or she would be dealt with severely. They were being treated like royalty before because they’d been booked into the Presidential Suite. Now, they were being shown even greater deference. The Chief Purser himself apologized to them as well, and went over the room with Justin to assure Karen that it was not bugged in any way. A bottle of the ship’s finest champagne was brought after they had been settled into it. That evening, they were invited to sit at the Captain’s table for dinner. If Karen hadn’t been so tense, she might even have enjoyed all the pampering. She trusted Justin when he assured her that their new room was ‘clean,’ and she knew that the Purser would see that nothing else disturbed them for the rest of their trip. But she still had a hard time relaxing that night, and it took a little while and a bit of persuading before Karen let Justin do more than just hold her close in bed, the covers pulled almost over their heads, in case whoever had bugged their other room had managed to slip a new bug into this one.

Once the arrangements had been made for Aiden and Angie’s new room, Leigh offered to help them move their things. Reg suggested they all meet later for dinner, and he told them that he’d get reservations at the nicest place in town and that they’d need to dress up a little for it. The three gathered their things into the bags they’d brought, and Leigh left her bag with Reg when the three headed off down the beach. When the three got to the room, Aiden was in the lead since he’d been carrying the key. He slipped the key into the doorknob, and put his other hand on the knob to turn it. A split-second later, Angie clothes-lined him across the chest with one arm while tripping him backwards with her foot, saying only “Hold on!” Aiden landed heavily on the hallway floor gasping for breath. Leigh knelt to check on him, but kept one eye on Angie. Angie had knelt in front of the doorknob and was muttering, something about “Cheap-ass, amateur job....” She studied the door for almost 2 minutes, during which time Aiden recovered his breath and sat up, leaning against Leigh and rubbing his chest. Angie dug into the bag, and came up with a small pouch of tools. She clipped the one wire leading from the knob and looked for secondaries, then cautiously opened the door, motioning the other two to stay back. It took her about 5 more minutes to trace the wire inch-by-inch over to the motion sensor, and then the next wire from the sensor to the strobe.

When Leigh and Aiden saw her stand and pick up the note, they followed her into the room. She held the note out to them, and they recognized the handwriting as easily as she had--Frank’s. The look on Angie’s face didn’t bode well for Frank, but rather than showing anger it was more contemplative. It looked like it was half prank and half warning to upgrade their room, Leigh suggested, hoping that Angie wasn’t planning anything that would cause this to escalate to a dangerous level. It wouldn’t do any of them any good to have team members at each others’ throats. “Good thing we’re moving to another HOTEL!” Angie said, angry as much with herself for not having thought of this risk as she was with Aiden for booking them into a cheap-ass hotel and with Frank for pointing out their mistake with this sort of trick. Then she noticed Aiden still rubbing his chest, looking at her woefully. “Sorry,” she told him, her guilt over hurting him written on her face. “But I thought it was real, and I didn’t want....” Aiden’s face softened, and he picked up one of their duffle bags to begin packing. Two roaches fell out as he lifted it, and the three looked at one another and grinned. They proceeded to shake out every single item before packing it, and this process caused the whole project to take longer than it should have. As they worked, it was obvious that Angie was plotting. Leigh started talking about maybe moving herself, since the luxury hotel is right on the clothing-optional beach, hoping to distract Angie from whatever she was planning. As they began walking over to their new hotel, Angie asked Leigh which room was Frank’s and if Terry ‘with him.’ She wasn’t, Leigh told Angie. But she hesitated to give Angie Frank’s room number. “Give me the number and nobody gets hurt,” Angie told her in a half-joking tone. “Just don’t tell him I gave it to you,” Leigh requested before telling Angie what she wanted to know.

Reg made a call a short time after Angie, Aiden and Leigh had left, and let Tony, Frank and Terry know what time they’d need to be ready for dinner. Tony said that he was going to hang out on the beach a while longer and he didn’t know if he would join the others for dinner. A little while later, Frank and Terry headed back up to their rooms to clean up and change. Reg and Raimon went to their rooms a little after that. As soon as Angie dumped her load on the bed of their new room and pulled on a pair of shorts, she left Aiden and Leigh to empty the bags. She went over to the hotel that Frank, Terry and Leigh were staying at, and rode the elevator to the third floor. Per standard police procedure, she stood to one side of the door, with her back to the wall, as she reached out and knocked three times. She listened for even the slightest sound from the room; nothing. She knocked again, and waited. Again, she heard no sound. She watched the bottom of the door and the ‘peep-hole’ as she knocked a third time, looking for a passing shadow that would tell her that Frank was in there. On the other side of the door, Frank moved across the room, ducking as he passed between the window and the door so that he wouldn’t cast a shadow on the ‘peep-hole.’ He walked carefully, trying to make no noise, as he came up beside the door and listened. He recognized that sort of knock, and suspected that Angie was there to pay him back for his little joke. And if it wasn’t her, he needed to be even more careful. He was beginning to really regret the fact that he hadn’t picked up a gun by now. When Angie saw and heard nothing, she slipped her lock-picking tool out of her back pocket and squatted in front of the doorknob. Frank heard the click of metal on metal as Angie worked the lock, and just before she unlocked the door he grabbed the knob and pulled the door open. She was already jumping backwards when he said “If I had a gun, you’d already be dead.” She stood and stuffed the pick into one pocket as she pulled a small piece of paper from another. “I believe you left something in our room,” she said, holding out the note he’d written and trying to cover her surprise with indignation. “Are you upgrading?” he asked her. “Yes,” she told him almost petulantly.

Angie looked around at what she could see of the room from the doorway. It was comfortable-looking. She’d always pictured Frank’s preferred quarters being more spartan. “Interesting look for you,” she said, noticing the light-weight suit and lack of a tie that he’d dressed in for dinner. “I was just returning this,” she told him, holding the note out again and waiting for some sort of response, maybe even an apology. Frank took the note without saying anything, and Angie turned and flounced off down the hall as if that really was all she’d come for. Frank stood there a moment watching her go. He wondered what she would have done if he hadn’t been in the room. How much of a war did he really want? Should he call security and report that she’d tried to break in? With the lock-pick in her pocket, the local police would certainly take her in for questioning, even if Frank ‘decided’ later not to press charges. Nah. It wasn’t worth the future trouble it would cause. “That was for inviting Terry to the Weendigo fiasco,” he said to her as she neared the elevator. “Now we’re even.” “Oh, no,” Angie said, turning around and heading back toward Frank. “I didn’t know it would turn out like that. I just thought.... You two were getting friendly....” She followed Frank into his room, neither one wanting to argue in the hotel hallway. Frank pointed out that it wasn’t her place to play matchmaker for them, and it was still her fault that Terry had been there at all. If she hadn’t been there, she wouldn’t have been dragged into being an Envoy. Angie argued that she’d had no way to know that something like that was going to happen, and that she also had no way to know that there was a critical mass problem for Envoys. Maybe if Frank had been more forthcoming with information like that....

And he still owes her, because she was forced to hurt Aiden to keep him from opening the door, since she had no way of knowing until she looked at it that the trap was a fake. Frank paused for a minute. She had a point. It was one thing for him to prank her in return for inviting Terry along to the UP. But he hadn’t expected anyone to get hurt by it. “OK,” Frank finally said. “I owe the two of you drinks.” “A bit more than that, I think,” Angie replied. “You should see the bruise on his chest.” “Fine. Drinks and dinner,” Frank agreed. Now that Angie was appeased, she began chatting with Frank about Raimon and how he shouldn’t be looking at HER boyfriend ‘that way.’ Then she did a complete 180 and asked him, “So, why are you and Terry in separate rooms?” “Because as far as I know, the relationship hasn’t progressed that far,” Frank answered. “What? Do I have to spike your Ovaltine with Viagra?” Angie asked. “Or maybe ‘rufies’?” Before she could tease him any more, Reg called to let everyone know that they’d need to leave shortly for dinner. Angie still needed to change, and she rushed back to her room without pushing Frank any further.

Tony had been planning on taking full advantage of the per diem that CDI had arranged for him, and having dinner with his friends from Detroit didn’t figure into those plans. So he stayed out on the beach, hoping that he’d have more luck ‘achieving’ something without the others around. Before long he spotted a statuesque red-head strolling by. He took a closer look. She was either a natural red-head or she was going to pretty extreme measures to perfect that disguise. He asked if she was in Cancun alone, and before long she’d agreed to have dinner with him. He couldn’t help but notice as they sat on the beach and talked, that although her ‘endowment’ wasn’t natural it was very well done. She was a flight attendant on her break. In the past five years she’d been all over the world. She was married once, but it hadn’t been a good experience and she was single now and planning to stay that way. Tony called the concierge and told him to make reservations at the nicest place in town, hoping that the others wouldn’t be there to ruin his evening. She told him where her room was, and both went to change. A little while later, the two were sitting at a quiet table in front of the chiminea, and over drinks and appetizers Tony was telling Sheila about what he did for a living, with pictures on his cell phone to prove that he really did blow up buildings. Most women didn’t believe him when he told them that he explained, but Sheila didn’t actually care. She wasn’t looking for a husband. Tony seemed like a nice enough guy, though, so she feigned interest.

Their entrees had just been served when Tony’s worst fear (at the moment, anyway) came true. In walked a group of far too beautiful people, all dressed for the occasion--even Angie, in the red dress that suited her so well. Tony was deep in conversation with Sheila, and didn’t notice them come in. Frank commented on the couple, and Angie asked if the comment meant they were going to leave Tony in peace. “Not at all,” Frank replied with an evil grin. As the group settled in for their own dinner, Angie was being very solicitous to Aiden, still trying to make up for hurting him earlier. Reg sent a bottle of the restaurant’s finest champagne over to Tony’s table, to have with their dessert. All through dinner, Angie and Frank were being far too chummy for Leigh’s comfort. Leigh requested that they not put a bomb in her room. “Not yours,” Frank assured her. “But....” He glanced over at Tony with the same evil grin. In the end, the only thing Frank and Angie arranged was to have all the women in the group wave at Tony as they filed past on their way out. Angie even went so far as to stop and put her arm around Tony’s shoulders and whisper “Good luck.” Sheila didn’t seem bother by the display, and Tony introduced Angie as a friend before leaning past her and saying ‘hi’ to Aiden. Aiden looked more uncomfortable by all of it than Tony did. When they all got outside, Reg suggested going ‘clubbing.’ Leigh’s only request was that they go somewhere where there would be enough room between the bodies to breathe. “This should be interesting,” Frank quietly commented to Terry. “I know you know how to dance,” she said back, hinting that he wasn’t off the hook.

Tony was as ‘indisposed’ as Karen and Justin that night, having been attacked by a stewardess from Poughkipsie. The others had a great time at the club Reg chose, and no monsters jumped out at them. Raimon was an excellent dancer, and did a very erotic tango. He flirted excessively with Leigh, but he seemed to know exactly where the line was and never crossed it. A private shuttle dropped them off near their hotels, and they all strolled around to the bar before heading back to their rooms. Frank and Terry noticed a strangely low-flying bat silhouetted against the moon as they walked along. The weird thing was that they couldn’t hear it, even though it seemed close enough to almost touch. Frank felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and he knew it wasn’t an ordinary bat. But when he told Terry, she just dragged him toward the bar and said she wanted to get a drink before bed. Maybe there WAS something to that ‘critical Envoy mass’ thing, she told him, but she didn’t want to worry about it tonight. Raimon remarked to Reg as they walked that he wasn’t sure who scared him more, Frank or Terry. “Frank should, dear,” Reg told him. “He’s the one getting the psychiatry degree.” Reg also warned Raimon that most of his friends were ex-military, so he really should be careful of them all. When the two left the bar, Reg suggested a drive in the Ferrari he’d rented, and he even let Raimon drive. When they did get back to their room, they had great sex. Raimon was practically operatic. But no one else heard them, nor did they hear a sound from Aiden and Angie’s room. It was good to know that the place had good sound-proofing.

On the other hand, Leigh and Frank didn’t have such a good night. Leigh dreamt that she was wading out into the ocean. The water was warm like silk against her skin, and she went further and further, until she could no longer touch the bottom with her toes. She laid back and let the water support her, floating under the wide blue sky. But the water soon became choppy and the sky began to cloud over. Both got worse, until Leigh was forced to start treading water to keep her head above the waves. She looked around and realized that there was no land as far as her eyes could see. The waves got worse, until the force of them pulled her under. Frank dreamt that he was being sacrificed by an Aztec priest. He woke in a cold sweat as the priest drove the ceremonial knife deep into his chest. A few minutes later, Frank was dressed and heading for the seedy part of town. He paid cash to an entirely disreputable man for an entirely disreputable firearm, one that he wouldn’t feel bad about leaving behind; and before heading back to the hotel, he went back to get another, for Terry. The next morning, when Terry saw Frank’s new weapon, the disappointment flooded across her face. “I wish you’d told me...” she started. Then the grin on her face was like the sun coming out from behind clouds, when Frank handed her the other one he’d bought.

In the morning, it was obvious to the Hostess that Karen wasn’t entirely enjoying herself anymore. She’d been told what had happened, so she arranged for the couple to have massages. By the time the ship docked in Cancun, Justin and Karen got off the boat all jelly-legged and relaxed. And the massages felt pretty good too. They had an excursion out to a Mayan pyramid scheduled for the next morning, but the rest of this day was free. At lunch, Karen had dragged Justin off in search of the historian who would be leading the excursion, and the three chatted over the meal. Not just about history and archaeology, either. Karen was concerned that Justin not feel like she was ignoring him, so she made a point to ask about other things to do while they were in port. The historian recommended a local restaurant for their dinner, if they wanted to ‘eat like the natives’ while they were there. The service was, well, what they might expect from a small local place; but the food was exceptional, he told them. Karen also made sure to make a few changes to the itinerary her mom and Edward had arranged for them. It was a very nice one, which had a good balance of free time and excursions. But it was obvious that her mom had Karen more in mind than Justin when she picked the excursions. It looked like they were scheduled to see every ancient ruin in the Caribbean. If Karen had been on the trip alone, it would have been perfect. But she knew that Justin wasn’t as interested in history and archaeology as she was. So the two sat and pored over what else was available, and managed to cut their schedule down to only a couple trips to historical sites.

The two walked along the pier each with one arm tight around the other. They smiled and glanced up at one another when they both spotted another couple kissing passionately. When the red head let go of the guy and backed away, it turned out the guy was Tony. Tony spotted them at the same time, and led the woman over to them. “Why is Tony on our honeymoon?” Justin asked Karen, as the two stopped stock still. Karen couldn’t answer because her jaw was hanging open. As Tony and Sheila got closer, Karen tugged Justin’s arm and motioned toward the ship. “Maybe we should go back in and try this again,” she suggested, her voice sounding a little scared and a little irritated at the same time. “What are you doing on our honeymoon?” Justin asked Tony, when he stopped in front of them. “It was my Christmas bonus,” Tony told them. He introduced Sheila, who told the couple, with a look at Tony that spoke volumes, that Tony had been a very good boy. And he knew everybody, she continued. He’d introduced her to a whole bunch of other people that were friends of his, including a very cute brunette. Sheila said this without the slightest hint of jealousy, and Tony grinned evilly. “Yeah, I’ll have to introduce youse guys to dem sometime,” he said, continuing to grin from ear to ear. Karen smiled politely, but she could feel the tension rising through her back and shoulders again in spite of how relaxed she’d been just a few minutes ago. She knew he meant that more of the team was there, maybe even all of them. As Tony and Sheila turned to continue down the waterfront, Karen asked Justin again if maybe they should go back on the ship and start over. Maybe Tony and the others wouldn’t be there then. Justin hugged her against his side and turned them to go in the opposite direction from where Tony had gone. He was determined not to let the others ruin his time alone with Karen.

The two wandered around the town for a little while, and actually managed to miss seeing any of the others that afternoon. They walked on the beach, and got drinks from a tiny palm-covered hut, and watched the sun drop until it was touching the treetops before they headed over to the restaurant the historian had told them about. It took a minute for their eyes to adjust to the low light, and when they did, the first thing the two saw was Reg sitting next to a beautiful man. All the others were there, too, except Sheila. Then the half-dozen waiters and waitresses gathered in front of the couple and sang “Happy, happy anniversary ” Karen pressed her face against Justin’s shoulder. He shoulders were shaking, but she wasn’t crying. She was trying hard to stifle her laughter. She wondered which of those morons had come up with the idea, and how long they’d been there teaching the goofy song (just like they sing in chain restaurants in America) to the restaurant’s staff. When she felt sure that she could smile at them without laughing hysterically, she faced them and clapped politely. She didn’t want to embarrass anyone, or make them feel bad, since she had no way of knowing how much effort they’d put into the song. Then Reg waved them over and Frank suggested that they might as well join them at their tables.

As the two had been led to expect, the service was so-so, but the food was fabulous. Oh, the food on the ship was good too, they told the others. But there was nothing else like eating the local cuisine. “So, why are you guys all here?” Justin asked them. Each of them explained what had happened, that Reg had been fleeing from his sister and picked up Raimon in LA on his way down; that Aiden and Angie had planned a month ago for their escape to someplace warm; and that Frank had surprised Terry and Leigh with the trip as a Christmas gift (mostly for Terry, they suspected.) The service was nothing to write home about, despite the waitress stopping past their tables every few minutes. It soon became clear that she wasn’t stopping for the rest of the group, she was mostly interested in Tony. At one point, she even wrote her phone number on the back of an order slip and passed it to him. Tony was charming and polite, but he was trying to make it pretty clear that he wasn’t interested. He may have been there looking for cold booze and easy women, but locals were never ‘easy.’ In every story he’d ever heard, the local girl always had big, beefy brothers or boyfriends or fathers who were ready to protect the girl’s reputation; or else she was part of a gang who would be waiting in the back alley to mug the guy, or worse. He’d hook himself another tourist girl later.

Reg was telling Justin and Karen about spotting Aiden’s and Angie’s butts (mostly Angie’s) from the balcony. “They were staying in a dive,” Frank interjected. “The place was more bugged that your rooms.” It was as if the whole room went silent for a minute around Justin and Karen. Aiden was trying to defend his hotel choice by saying that he’d made the arrangements a month ago and didn’t know everyone else would be there. But Justin’s and Karen’s focus had narrowed to Frank. “What do you mean ‘more bugged than’ our rooms,” Justin asked. He knew it. Frank had planted that stuff. Karen had turned beet red again, and was studying the cracks in the tabletop. “Well, you did find the camera I sent you, right?” Frank replied. He tried to tell them that it was part of a gift basket, but Justin wasn’t buying it. It didn’t even have a card, and that didn’t explain the 2-way mike. Frank said that he couldn’t understand how the card had gotten lost, but he really didn’t know anything about the mike and had no idea who could have sent that. “Maybe Edward?” he suggested. Angie sat there looking completely innocent, but Aiden began to squirm. Justin asked if Aiden had planted the mike, since he was looking so guilty. “I have nothing to be guilty about,” Aiden insisted. But Angie didn’t say a thing and Aiden continued to squirm, even more so when Justin explained that they’d had to change rooms (which meant a downgrade from the Presidential Suite) because of the incident and that the Purser was going to fire whoever helped plant the items. Well, he let Angie pick out his bathing suit, Frank prodded. Aiden blushed. He ought to be guilty about that, Aiden admitted. “Yeah,” Reg teased; “Raimon spotted you from the hotel room ” Aiden blushed even redder. “Why are people commenting on my ass?” he whined. “Can I just die now?” “They were the best cheek on the beach,” Raimon replied with a hint of lust. “Wasn’t the rump roast good last night,” Tony laughed from the other end of the table. “Ah. I preferred the loin,” Reg responded, chuckling.

Aiden was trying to slide under the table now, but Angie wouldn’t let him. Karen, in an attempt to take the heat off him, told the others that she and Justin were going to see a pyramid in the morning. “So was I,” Leigh told her. “I just hope nothing swoops down and carries me off,” she joked. Karen got a glum look on her face. “Something probably will happen, now,” she said, “with everyone here.” Leigh elbowed her and nodded briefly at Raimon. Right; they couldn’t talk freely in front of him, Karen remembered. The two compared notes and it appeared that they were going on the same tour. And they, she and Frank and Terry, were going to be joining the cruise, too, Leigh added. It turned out that Aiden and Angie had made arrangements to join the cruise as well. Tony wasn’t sure what he was going to do yet, since his arrangements had been paid for by CDI. And Reg and Raimon were planning on hanging around Cancun a little longer before both returned home to deal with prior commitments. Mostly Reg was hoping to avoid his father for a while, since he’d abandoned him at Claire’s. He was sure his dad was going to get revenge for it. Raimon made a disparaging comment about Claire, and Justin told them that he disliked the woman and he’d never even met her. It was mostly the comment Phil had related to his son in the hospital, that Claire wanted Reg to come for Thanksgiving and ‘bring along whatever he was dating at the time.’ “What were you dating at the time,” Raimon asked in his charmingly heavy accent. Reg thought for a second then pointed at Leigh. “Well, at least you have taste,” Raimon said. Reg actually blushed.

Dinner took hours, as dish after dish appeared on their tables, was cleaned off, and was spirited away to make room for the next. The waitress had managed to give Tony a little pinch on the ass, and by the end of dinner it was clear that she wanted HIM for dessert. He was never rude but he also wasn’t encouraging; and when they left the restaurant, the waitress wasn’t with them. Justin and Karen headed back to the ship for the night, and the others went clubbing again. Tony met another American female tourist who was as interested in him as he was in her, and she happened to be in Cancun with 3 girlfriends. Not being one to turn down a woman, Tony willingly invited them all up to his room. As Leigh, Raimon and Reg walked back to their hotels, Raimon moved around to Leigh's side and whispered suggestions for how to turn Reg into goo. What he said was delicate but suggestive enough to intrigue Leigh and she agreed to go to their room with them. Frank and Terry were walking behind them and Frank asked Terry if it was something in the water. Terry told him that she didn't drink the water, just beer. Did he want to go get a drink? They veered off toward the bar, and ended up the last two to get back to their rooms.

Most of them had a good night. But Frank woke around 3:30am in a cold sweat. He hadn't been having a nightmare, but he felt like someone had walked on his grave. He concentrated for a moment. It didn't feel like there was any unusual presence in his room. He went next door and knocked on Terry's door. No answer. He knocked louder. Still no answer. He went back to his room and out onto the balcony. He climbed over to Terry's balcony and found the door open. The room was in disarray, and Terry was not in it. The chain was still in place on the hallway door. Bugger. Frank hadn't had any prescient dreams lately, and hoped that he could find the answer he needed to this puzzle now. He curled up on the floor of Terry's room and concentrated on how to find Terry, and he drifted off to sleep. In his dream, he woke and looked around a stone chamber lit only by flickering torchlight. It was eerily similar to the chamber in which he’d been sacrificed by the Aztec priest in his dream the night before. He heard the rustle of large wings. Too large. But he saw nothing flying in the chamber. On the far side of the room was what was plainly a sacrificial altar, and sprawled across it was Terry. She was clothed only in her underwear, and a gash on her forehead had spilled blood down her face. He couldn’t tell for sure if she was dead or alive. But she didn’t appear to be bound in any way, and there was no priest standing over her with a ceremonial dagger. Frank woke with a start. The glowing red numbers on the clock on Terry’s nightstand told him it was 5am. He pushed himself stiffly up from the floor and began to look around more closely.